Gossamer
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: Three weeks after her parents' death, Paige receives some surprising news. What she decides next will change the course of history, not only her own, but that of the family she doesn't even know exists. PREQUEL TO DOWN THE TWISTED PATH
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **So, about a year ago, I promised you a rewrite of _Down the Twisted Path_, along with a prequel and a couple sequels. Well, it's taken longer than I expected to get this up, but that's because it's grown. _Down the Twisted Path_ has now spawned its own universe, and fairly substantial rewrite of Charmed canon. For those of you who enjoyed the original, the central premise is still going to be the same, but everything else is up for grabs.

The original _Down the Twisted Path_ is coming down with the posting of this fic. And updates will be once a week, on Tuesdays. If I'm late, feel free to shoot me a PM and bug me.

A million, billion thanks to my absolutely amazing beta, liron-aria. Without her, this story likely wouldn't have seen the light of day.

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><p><em><strong>December 18th, 1994<strong>_

Paige closed her eyes, trying fruitlessly to shut out the sounds of the noisy emergency room. Her stomach was still rolling, wildly, and she swallowed, hard, against the impulse to run to the nearest garbage can and be sick. Again.

She hated hospitals, and she wanted desperately to be anywhere else, right now. Being here, in the emergency room of San Francisco Memorial, with the screaming of sirens in the background, it was just too much. Especially with the ghosts of her parents still hanging around, not even gone three weeks.

But, there was nowhere else that she could go. This latest dizzy spell had hit her with all the force of a freight train, and she'd gotten so violently sick that, for a minute, she'd actually thought that she was going to die. And, going all the way across town to her regular doctor had been out of the question; she'd barely had the strength to drag herself the few blocks from her school to the hospital.

"Sit there!" a voice barked, suddenly, and Paige jumped in shock, half-expecting the voice to start yelling at her.

But, when she opened her eyes, she saw a teenage boy about her own age dropping gracelessly into the chair beside her. There was an insolent smirk on his face that she recognized from having worn far too many times, herself.

The owner of the gruff voice turned out to be a very large man with huge shoulders and hands that looked like they could crush bricks. His entire demeanor practically screamed Supreme Authority Figure, and the rebellious part of her that she still hadn't managed to suppress all the way bristled at the hostile tone he was taking with the boy.

For his part, the boy had slumped down in his seat and was smirking openly at the man. The man was going absolutely crimson with rage as he yelled at the kid, apparently not caring who in the emergency department heard him.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the man ran out of steam and stalked off to the admitting desk to talk to one of the nurses.

"You know, you probably shouldn't antagonize that guy like that," Paige spoke up, after the man was gone, glancing quickly over at the boy as she spoke. "He looked like he was going to have an aneurysm."

The boy shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with the idea.

"Dan and I have a routine going," he told her. "I do something stupid that provokes him to the point of having a stroke, he yells at me about how worthless I am, and then I get dumped in yet another foster home. Everybody's miserable, and the status quo is maintained."

"Aren't you tired of getting yelled at?" Paige asked, without thinking, and then she blushed. "I'm sorry; that's none of my business."

But, the boy just shrugged, again, seemingly nonplussed.

"How else would I fill my days?" he asked, rhetorically.

Paige noticed, then, that his voice sounded kind of nasal, and she looked over at him, more closely. He had his head tipped back against the back of the seat, one hand holding a large handkerchief in place over his nose.

"Nosebleed?" she asked, sympathetically.

"Broken," the boy corrected her. Then, without warning, he pulled the cloth away from his face, examining the blood-spattered surface critically. "Looks like the bleeding's almost stopped," he said, cheerfully.

As Paige stared in horror at the blood on the cloth, and the mess of his broken nose, she could feel bile forcing its way up from her stomach, and she pressed a hand tightly against her mouth. When he noticed the look on his face, the boy tried for a reassuring smile.

"Hey, if you think this is bad," he told her, "you should see the other guy."

"Excuse me," Paige said, faintly, and then she bolted across the room.

She grabbed the garbage can that was sitting on the floor beside the nurses' station and threw up. She was bent double from heaving so violently, but nothing but bile and water was coming up after her earlier bouts of sickness. She could hear someone talking to her, saying her name, and when she thought that she was finally steady, again, she looked up to see a nurse standing in front of her.

"Doctor Ashby is ready for you, Miss Matthews," the woman said, calmly, as if seeing people throwing up in her garbage can was an everyday occurrence. Which, considering her job, it probably was.

The nurse led her back to a curtained off exam area, handing her a paper robe to change into.

"Doctor Ashby will be back to see you in a few minutes," the nurse told her as she climbed onto the exam table.

Paige nodded, wordlessly, taking the emesis basin that the nurse handed her, gratefully. She stayed silent as the nurse took her vitals and recorded things in her chart, listening to the woman's cheerful chatter as she worked.

Ashby came in a few minutes later, his face expressionless as he read the chart that the nurse handed him. When he finished, he looked over at her and gave her a small smile.

"So, Miss Matthews," he asked, as he pulled his stethoscope off from around his neck and put the earpieces in his ears, "how have you been feeling, lately?"

"Like crap," Paige admitted, honestly. "I've been getting sick all the time, really, really sick."

"And you've been having some dizzy spells, I understand?" Ashby prompted.

"I fainted last week," Paige told him. "I fell down half a flight of stairs, and my cousin broke my fall."

"You were lucky," Ashby commented. "You could have been seriously hurt in a fall like that. So," he went on, glancing back down at her chart, "how long has all of this been going on?"

"About three weeks," Paige said, quietly, grimacing when Ashby looked at her, sharply, at her words.

"Your parents died about three weeks ago, didn't they?" he asked, gently. "A car accident, from what it says in your chart?"

Paige nodded, pressing her lips into a tight line as she struggled not to cry. A few tears escaped her control, anyway, and she hastily wiped them away.

"You think this is all in my head, don't you?" she asked, bitterly, echoing the words she'd heard from everyone she'd told about her symptoms.

Even her aunt and uncle didn't believe that there was anything seriously wrong with her, although neither of them had actually come out and said it. But, Ashby surprised her.

"I don't know what's wrong with you," he told her, honestly. "But, we're going to run some tests, and see what we can find out. How's that sound?"

"Sounds good," Paige answered, managing to muster up a small smile when Ashby looked at her.

Ashby took some blood – Paige very carefully looked away from him when he was doing it – and asked her a bunch of questions about her health, and about everything that she'd been doing over the last few weeks. Some of the questions were of an intensely personal nature, and she found herself blushing furiously.

But, she answered everything honestly. She'd spent too much time lying and keeping secrets from people, in the past, and she wasn't about to fall back into those bad habits. Her behavior had already cost her so much, and she couldn't lose anything else.

When Ashby disappeared down to the lab, she lay back on the table with a sigh, pillowing her head on her hands. She was tired, and she closed her eyes and just let herself drift until she heard a noise at the curtain. Opening her eyes, she sat up, expecting to see Ashby coming back into the room. But, the boy from the waiting room was standing there, staring at her.

"What do you want?" Paige asked, and then she winced when she realized how rude she'd sounded. "I'm sorry-"

"That's okay," the boy said, with a shrug. "My fault for barging in on you."

Paige noted, with relief, that he was no longer holding the bloody cloth in front of his nose. His face had been cleaned up and there were strips of tape across the bridge of his nose, realigning the broken bones.

"You're looking less gruesome," she commented.

"I tried to convince them to give me a scar," the boy told her, "to make me look tougher. But, they wouldn't go for it."

"Darn code of ethics," Paige quipped, and the boy grinned at her. "So, why are you here?" she asked, curiously. "Come to see me get sick, again?"

"Actually, I wanted to apologize for making you throw up the first time," the boy said, sheepishly. "I wasn't thinking, and I'm sorry you got sick because of it."

"That's okay," Paige told him. "Lately, everything's been making me sick. If it hadn't been your nose, it just would have been something else."

"Well, at least I know it's not personal," the boy told her, with a smile. Holding out his hand, he added, "I'm Henry Mitchell."

"Paige Matthews," she returned, shaking his hand.

"So, what are you in for, Matthews?" Henry asked, leaning against the exam table sitting on.

"I don't know, yet," Paige admitted. "I'm still waiting to find out."

"Well-" Henry started to say, but then a bellow cut off the rest of his sentence.

He jumped in surprise as his parole officer, or just whoever the guy was, appeared in the doorway, glaring at the boy.

"What's with the disappearing act, Mitchell?" he snapped, and Henry just shrugged, nonchalantly.

"I just went for a walk," he said, dismissively. "Is that a crime, now?"

"Look, kid," the guy gritted out, "you're in enough trouble, here-"

"Excuse me," a cool voice spoke up, interrupting the man's tirade, "you're disturbing my patient."

Paige hid a smirk behind her hand as the man snapped to attention, turning around to see Ashby staring at him with an impassive expression on his face.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Ashby continued, calmly, "or I'll call security."

Then, without another word, he pushed past the man and into the exam room. After a minute, the man stalked off, with Henry following him. The boy had a suitably sheepish look on his face, but there was a mischievous glint in his eyes that had Paige grinning. Then, she turned her attention to Ashby, who was holding a sheet of paper in his hands.

"Well, doc," she said, hoping that she didn't sound nervous, "what do I got? Is it the cold, or some kind of flu?"

Ashby sighed, looking down at the piece of paper in his hands with an unreadable expression on his face. Paige could feel the butterflies start in her stomach as she waited anxiously to hear what he was going to say.

"Miss Matthews," Ashby finally said, looking up at her, "Paige. You're pregnant."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys rock, and I love hearing what you think. I couldn't wait until Tuesday, so the update is a little early, this week.

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><p>The first Monday back at school was hard. She didn't know how the rumor mill had found out about her condition, but the news had spread like wildfire, and Paige could hear the whispers all around her as she walked down the halls. For a few seconds, after the first person had looked at her with an all-too-knowing gaze in their eyes, Paige had considered skipping school and hiding out somewhere.<p>

But, she shook off the impulse, and forced herself to keep moving. She'd promised her aunt and uncle, and more importantly herself, that she wasn't going to fall back into her old, destructive habits after her parents' death, that drinking, skipping school, and acting out were all behind her. She was at a new school, and she had the chance to make a new start. Assuming everyone else was willing to let her.

_'Besides,'_ she thought, wryly, her hands curling protectively around her still-flat abdomen, _'what kind of example would I set for my child?'_

No, skipping school was out of the question. And so was calling her aunt to come get her, no matter how rough the day got. Julie and Dave had been skeptical enough about taking her in, especially with her history. Finding out that she was pregnant had just increased their disappointment in her.

She'd heard enough of the angrily-whispered arguments between her aunt and uncle ever since she'd dropped the bombshell of her pregnancy; she had no desire to go back to that any sooner than she had to, and that was assuming that her aunt was even willing to come and pick her up in the first place.

Instead, she squared her shoulders and went through her day with a dogged determination that she hadn't even known that she'd possessed. She kept her head down, spoke only when someone spoke to her, first, and silently counted down the minutes until she could finally get out of there.

Finally, the day was almost done. She marched through the hall to her last class, ignoring the whispers that followed her to the room, as she'd done all day. She made her way to her usual desk at the back of the room, but she stopped in her tracks when the girls clustered together at their desks stopped talking to stare at her like a specimen under a microscope.

Paige could feel a blush creeping up on her cheeks as she was pinned by their direct gazes, and she turned and fled back to the front of the room, dropping into the first empty desk she found. She buried her head in her hands as the loud whispers started up behind her, trying in vain to ignore the pointed mutterings.

The class passed by with agonizing slowness, and Paige fled as soon as the last bell rang. She headed for the parking lot before she remembered that her cousin, Jeff, who was supposed to drive her home, had band practice for another hour. Which meant that she was stuck at school until he was done.

She could have taken the bus home, but she really didn't feel like dealing with being stared at some more. And she really didn't want to walk back to her aunt and uncle's house. So, she was stuck.

She found a spot under a tree and sat back against the trunk. Pulling her history book out of her backpack, she started reading. But, her mind was only half on the subject, and she lost her concentration completely when she heard her name being said.

She looked up, expecting to see someone talking to her, but she just saw a group of girls walking toward their cars, talking animatedly. And, after hearing her name, Paige couldn't help but eavesdrop on their conversation.

"Yeah, I heard she was like this at her old school, too," one of the girls was saying, and Paige started to get a sinking feeling in her gut.

Another girl laughed, the sound high-pitched and cruel. "You mean, easy?" she sneered, and the rest of the group laughed along with her.

Paige could feel the heat flooding her cheeks as she went crimson with shame. She buried her face in her hands, trying to block out the sound of the girls' mocking laughter.

_'I was stupid and naive to think that I could get away from this,'_ she thought, miserably. _'It doesn't matter that I'm at a brand-new school; I guess I'm still the same old Paige."_

"You shouldn't listen to them," a male voice said, breaking into her thoughts, and she lifted her head to see a familiar face watching her, sympathetically. "Most of those hypocrites are guilty of the exact same thing they're attacking you for."

"Yeah, but none of them got knocked up," Paige said, bitterly, as she glared half-heartedly at Henry. "Why do you care, anyway?"

"You looked unhappy," Henry said, with a shrug, as he sat down beside her. "I don't like it when you're unhappy."

"You don't even know me," Paige protested.

"I'd like to," Henry told her, and Paige snorted, derisively.

"Right," she muttered. "I'm sure it's your heart's desire to be best buds with the local delinquent who'll sleep with any guy who asks," she added, parroting the same things she'd heard whispered behind her back, all day.

Henry was silent for so long that she was pretty sure that she'd finally managed to offend him. But, when she risked a glance over at the boy, he was studying her with a solemn expression on his face.

"What?" she snapped, when he remained silent, just looking at her.

"Why are you so hard on yourself?" he asked, quietly. "You're only human; you made a mistake."

"The last time I made a mistake this big, my parents were killed in a car crash," Paige retorted, without thinking about it, and then she snapped her mouth shut.

She looked pointedly away from Henry, afraid to see censure, or worse, in his eyes. Then, as a warm hand covered her own, she looked up at him in shock.

"We've all done things we regret," he said, quietly, as she wondered if he was speaking from personal experience. "You shouldn't let this be one of them."

"I don't even know what I'm going to do," she admitted, softly, wondering why she was telling him all this. "I don't know the right thing to do."

"Whatever you decide," Henry told her, earnestly, "don't do it out of anger, or fear. Let yourself love this baby, if even for a little bit, and whatever choice you make will be the right one."

"You sound like you've made that speech, before," Paige said, wryly, and Henry just shrugged.

"Let's just say that I've spent a lot of time over the years wondering why my parents would have given me up," he told her. "I want to believe that they loved me, that they thought that giving me up was the best thing-"

He trailed off, a wistful look in his eyes as he stared off in the distance. Then, he snapped back to attention a few seconds later, looking ruefully at her.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I was trying to make you feel better, not make this all about me."

"I used to wonder why my birth parents gave me up, too," Paige told him, and he looked at her in surprise.

"You're a foster kid?" he asked, and Paige nodded.

"I was left at a church when I was a baby," she told him. "I was in foster care for a couple of years, and my parents adopted me through a friend at the church when I was three."

"You were lucky," Henry said, the wistful tone back in his voice.

"I was lucky," she agreed. "I could have spent my life bouncing from place to place, never having anywhere to call home. Instead, I got the gift of the most amazing parents in the world. I just wish that it hadn't taken me so long to realize it," she finished, sadly.

"I've been in foster care since I was two weeks old," Henry told her, quietly. "I had a place until I was five, people that I called Mom and Dad – up until they decided that they didn't want to be parents, anymore. There hasn't really been any place, since."

"I don't want that kind of future for my baby," Paige said. "I don't want my child to go through that kind of pain."

"So, what are you going to do?" Henry asked.

"I still don't know," Paige admitted, with a sigh.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Thanks a million to my amazing beta, **liron-aria**. And thanks to my readers and reviewers. I love hearing what you guys think.

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><p>It took Paige another two weeks to work up the courage to go talk to the father of her baby. She hadn't seen Nick Long since the night of that fateful party over a month ago, and she wasn't sure how she felt about seeing him, now.<p>

The party had been hosted by a group of the rich kids from one of the prestigious private schools in the area, and one of Paige's friends had managed to get invited. She'd urged Paige to tag along, promising her a good time. What she'd had, instead, had been a vicious hangover and the memory of Nick telling her that she was a good kid and that he wished her well.

And, now, she had to tell him that he was going to be a father.

She didn't even know if Nick wanted to be involved in his baby's life. But, she had to give him the chance.

_'Who knows?'_ she thought, wryly. _'He might surprise me.'_

She was waiting outside the gates of his private school, sitting on a low wall. Butterflies were churning in her stomach, and she wanted to blame the baby, but she knew that it was too early in her pregnancy to feel anything like that.

Hearing the sound of voices in the distance, she looked up to see a group of teenagers walking in her direction. Nick was at the front of the group, and the nervous sensation shot into overtime at the sight of him. For just a second, she very strongly considered turning around and leaving, but she squashed down the thought as quickly as it had appeared. She wasn't going to chicken out, not now.

"Nick," she called out, as he got closer, and she watched as confusion, and then slow recognition, flashed across his face.

"Patricia, right?" he asked, as he looked at her, quizzically. "What are you doing here?"

"It's Paige, actually," she corrected him, gently. "I need to talk to you."

"So, talk," Nick said, with a careless laugh, as he and his friends stopped in front of her.

"It's actually kind of personal," Paige hedged, nervously. "I was hoping that we could talk somewhere in private, maybe?"

"Look, Paige, I'm pretty busy, right now," Nick said, the condescension in his voice making his friends laugh. "So, if you could just hurry this up and then run along-"

"I'm pregnant," Paige blurted out, her voice tight with tension.

She hated saying it like that, out in the open and in front of everyone, but she couldn't take any longer, couldn't take the chance that she was going to lose her nerve. And it wasn't like she was going to be able to keep it a secret for much longer.

_'Besides,'_ she told herself, firmly, as she stared up at the frozen expression on Nick's face, _'what do I care what his friends think of me? I'm never going to see any of them, ever again.'_

Nick was still staring at her with a shocked expression on his face, and she was tempted to reach out and poke him, just to see if he was going to react. Then, Nick visibly shuddered, his stunned expression morphing into a disdainful sneer.

"What does this have to do with me?" he asked, although his voice sounded rather strained and desperate to her ears.

"Because you're the father," Paige snapped, her patience suddenly wearing thin. "Why else would I be out here publically humiliating myself? Just to hear myself talk?"

"Let's go over here," Nick said, abruptly, wrapping his hand around her arm and towing her a short distance away from his friends.

Paige shook her arm out of his painful grasp, glaring at him as she rubbed the sore spot on her arm. The area where he'd been gripping her was bright red, and she could tell that there was going to be a bruise there, tomorrow morning.

"You know," she said, pointedly, as she stopped and looked up at him, "I don't remember seeing the caveman act a few weeks ago."

"You're pregnant," Nick said, instead, ignoring her jab. "How did this happen?"

"You want me to draw you a picture?" Paige asked, wryly, feeling more like she was on secure ground, especially since he seemed to be floundering.

"Well, it's not mine," Nick said, defensively, glaring at her as though challenging her to say something different.

"There's no one else it could be," Paige countered, watching as he went white at her words. "This is your baby, Nick."

"No, it's not," Nick insisted, forcefully. When she tried to protest, he continued, "I don't want anything to do with you, or that kid."

Paige stared at him, anger and hurt warring for dominance in her emotions.

"I can't believe that I actually thought that you'd be decent about this," she said, in disgust. "I thought you might actually want to be involved with your baby."

"Well, I don't," Nick snapped, shortly, a note of fear lurking behind the belligerent tone in his voice. "You can't prove that kid is mine, and my family will fight you if you try."

Paige stared at him in disbelief, and then she just sighed and shook her head. Even though she'd fervently hoped otherwise, some part of her had been dreading that reaction from him.

"Have a nice life, Nick," she said, turning and walking away. "I hope you rot in hell."

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><p>After walking around the streets for a while, anger simmering in her gut, Paige found herself at Golden Gate Park. For years, it had been her favorite place to go and think, to just be alone with her thoughts. And now, more than ever, she found herself craving the peace and solitude of the park.<p>

She wandered idly through the park for a while, not really surprised when she found herself at the Children's Playground, with the bright sound of laughter filling the air. She sat down on a bench, leaning back against the backrest and closing her eyes as she drank in the sounds of the children playing, nearby.

_'We'll be coming here, together, some day,'_ she thought at her baby, letting her hands rest protectively over her stomach. _'It's so amazing here; I know you'll love it. I always did when I came here with my mom-'_

She stopped, there, feeling tears spring to her eyes at the thought of her parents. She'd been thinking of them constantly over the past few weeks, especially her mother. She couldn't help but wonder what she would think of all this. Would she welcome her new grandchild? Would she be proud that her baby was becoming a mother? Sad that her little girl was growing up?

_'I miss you and Dad, so much,'_ Paige thought, sniffing back tears as she wiped the moisture away from her eyes. _'I wish you were here, right now. I wish you could tell me what I should do.'_

Five weeks in, and she still didn't know what she was going to do. There were days when the thought of keeping the baby made her heart race and made her break out in a cold sweat. But, those days were quickly being outnumbered by her daydreams of the future.

She kept seeing a little girl in her dreams, vivid green eyes and dark, curly hair, and a smile as bright as the sun. In her dreams, she got to hold her daughter, and sing to her – and then she would wake up, and she was filled with a deep, lost feeling that made her want to crawl under the covers and hide.

She wanted an answer, a clear, definitive path to take. She just wanted to know, for sure, what she should do.

"Excuse me? Do you mind if I sit down?"

Startled out of her thoughts, Paige looked up to see a young woman with short, dark hair standing beside the bench. Blushing furiously, she snatched her bag off the bench next to her, gesturing to the empty space.

"Go ahead," she said, and the woman sat beside her with a grateful sigh.

"Thanks," she said, as she slumped against the back of the bench. "I thought that I was in good shape, but then I walked through the park trying to find shots for my portfolio. I forgot just how big this place is; I haven't been here in a long time."

"I used to come here all the time, too," Paige said, conversationally. "What kind of portfolio are you working on?" she asked, interested, when she saw the camera in the other woman's hands.

"It's my final assignment to get my bachelors' degree," the woman told her. "I have to create a professional portfolio and a presentation about it. I decided to do faces in the city. Hey," she added, a second later, "would you mind if I took your picture?"

"Sure," Paige said, with a shrug. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just sit there for a second," the woman said, speculatively, as she got up and walked a slow circle around Paige. "I want to see what kind of light I'm working with."

At the other woman's direction, Paige left the bench to sit on the ground, with her back against the trunk of a tree. As she leaned back, one hand drifted down unconsciously to wrap around her abdomen, getting the woman's attention.

"I'm pregnant," Paige explained, seeing her curious gaze, even as she wondered why she was confiding in a total stranger.

"Congratulations," the woman said, beaming at her, and she was the only person, other than Henry, that hadn't immediately been disapproving at her news. "You must be so happy!"

"Thank you," Paige said, softly. "You know," she added, a moment later, "I really think I am."

She spent the next twenty minutes posing for the other woman, helping her get the best shots. They talked while they were working, and Paige found herself telling the other woman all about her own art. When they were done, she accepted the other woman's help in getting up.

"This was great, thank you," the woman told her, excitedly. "Um, this might seem like an odd question-"

"What is it?" Paige asked, when the woman trailed off, awkwardly.

"Would you mind if I took pictures of you throughout your pregnancy?" the woman asked, in a rush, her cheeks flushing with color. "It's just – I need more than one portfolio, especially when I start looking for a job, and I think that it would be fascinating to document something like this-"

"Sure," Paige said, cutting off the woman's nervous rambling. "It sounds like fun. You're going to have to let me paint you, in return," she added, and the woman nodded.

"It's a deal," she said, holding out her hand for Paige to shake. "I'll call you with the details?"

"Okay," Paige said, as she scrabbled in her bag for a piece of scrap paper, scrawling her name and number on it. "I'm Paige Matthews, by the way."

"Prue," the woman told her, as she took the piece of paper. "Prue Halliwell."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Thanks a million to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys rock.

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><p>"You know," Paige said, watching Henry wince as a particularly loud shriek ripped across the waiting room of the doctor's office, "you don't have to be here. I'm okay by myself."<p>

"Are you kidding?" Henry asked, looking over at her in disbelief. "We're supposed to hear the baby's heartbeat, today. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

He dropped his arm around Paige's shoulders, and she snuggled into his loose embrace.

"Thank you," she told him, a few seconds later. "I was lying, before. I didn't really want to come to this thing, alone, and Aunt Julie had to work-"

"Like I'd be anywhere else," Henry retorted, playfully. "You're my best friend, Paige. Besides, when I told you that I'd be here for you, for anything, I meant it."

"And you've more than lived up to that promise," Paige said, quietly. "You've certainly done more than Nick has."

"How are you two doing, anyway?" Henry asked, curiously. "Is he still acting like an ass?"

"He called the house a couple of days ago," Paige told him. "He said that he's sorry, and that he wants to talk."

"Are you going to?" Henry asked, and Paige shrugged.

"I don't know," she admitted, honestly. "There's a big part of me that just wants to ignore him, like he did to me and the baby for the last ten weeks. But-"

"But-" Henry prompted her, gently, when she fell silent.

"There's another part of me that insists that he is the baby's father," she went on, reluctantly. "And that I should give him a chance to be involved in his child's life."

Henry snorted in derision, but he'd never had a very high opinion of Nick to begin with.

"I really want to tell you to just let him hang," he finally said, "but, in all fairness, you probably should hear him out."

"Yeah, probably," Paige said, with a sigh, reluctantly agreeing with him.

"But," Henry continued, "if you need me to go beat Nick up, just say the word, and I'm there."

Paige laughed, softly, shaking her head in exasperation.

"Aren't you tired of always getting on your parole officer's bad side?" she asked, wryly.

"Dan and I haven't gone ten rounds in a few weeks," Henry told her. "I think we're both starting to miss it."

"Admit it," Paige teased him, "Dan's growing on you."

"Yeah, like a fungus," Henry retorted.

Paige was about to say something in reply when her name was called across the waiting room. She and Henry stood, following the nurse back to the exam room. She was a new one, someone that Paige hadn't met before, and she was insufferably cheerful while she talked a mile a minute.

"You two are such a cute couple," she gushed, as she escorted Paige to the scale to check her weight. "You must be such a proud daddy!"

"I must be," Henry said, dryly, as he and Paige exchanged a wordless look.

Paige shook her head in response to his unspoken question, deciding not to correct the woman's mistaken assumption. She didn't care if people thought that Henry was her baby's father, so long as he didn't mind, and it kept her from having to try and justify her situation with Nick to a complete stranger.

She stepped off the scale after the nurse had recorded her weight, slipping her feet back into her shoes and following the woman down the hall. The nurse led them to an empty exam room at the end of the hallway, holding the door open as they preceded her into the room.

Paige hopped up onto the paper-covered exam table, relishing the fact that she still could, in fact, do things like hopping. She wasn't looking forward to when she got so big that she wasn't going to be able to move around as easily.

She was quiet while the nurse took her vitals, recording her pulse, her blood pressure, and her temperature. But, the other woman more than filled the silence in the room, chatting aimlessly while she worked, and Paige was amazed that she was able to hear anything with the way she was talking.

Finally, the nurse left them alone in the room, promising that the doctor would be with them in a few minutes, and Paige breathed a sigh of relief at the silence that fell in her wake.

"And I thought you could talk," Henry commented, idly, as he slouched in the chair against the far wall. "I don't think her mouth ever stopped moving."

"At least she was friendly," Paige told him, as she lay back on the table, the movement stretching out the sore muscles in her back. "The last two times I was here, I was being treated by Nurse Ratched, who acted like I was going to Hell for being a teenage mom."

"I think you're brave," Henry said, firmly, as if he thought she might actually believe what other people were saying about her. "This baby is lucky to have you as her mom."

"Oh, it's her, now?" Paige teased him, gently. "Last week, you were adamant that I was having a boy, and two weeks ago, it was twins."

"You polished off an entire pizza by yourself," Henry reminded her. "You didn't even let me have a single piece."

"I was hungry," Paige said, defensively. "And, now I want pizza," she added, thoughtfully, and Henry groaned in mock dismay.

"We'll go out to Carlini's after the appointment," he told her. "And, yes," he went on, getting back to his earlier comment, "I think you're having a girl. With frilly, pink dresses, and little bows in her hair," he added, and Paige shot him a disbelieving look.

"Do I seem like the frilly, pink bow type, to you?" she asked, and Henry shrugged, nonchalantly.

"You could be," he pointed out.

The door opened, then, cutting off the rest of his comment, and Paige's doctor walked in. The older woman had been highly recommended by Doctor Ashby, and Paige was glad that she'd gone with the man's recommendation. Doctor Roberts had never once been judgmental towards Paige because of her age, and she'd been nothing but amazingly helpful and supportive.

"How are you feeling, today?" she asked, cheerfully, as she closed the door behind her.

"I'm not nauseous, anymore," Paige started, just as the door opened, again, and a young woman in a white lab coat walked in.

"Sorry I'm late, Doctor Roberts," she said, breathlessly, as she stopped beside the older woman.

"That's all right," Doctor Roberts said. Turning to Paige, she added, "This is Ava Nicolae; she's a medical student following me on rounds, today. Is it all right if she observes your appointment?"

"I guess," Paige said, with a shrug, greeting the other woman with a small smile and a handshake.

The first part of the exam passed by quickly, to Paige's eternal relief, and then they got to the part that she'd been anticipating for several weeks, now. She was finally going to get to see her baby.

At Doctor Roberts' direction, she pulled up the hem of her loose shirt, revealing an abdomen that was just beginning to swell with a baby bump. The gel that Doctor Roberts smeared on her stomach was cold, but it warmed quickly once it was in contact with her skin.

As she turned on the ultrasound machine, Doctor Roberts picked up the imaging wand with her free hand, pressing it lightly to Paige's stomach.

"There's going to be some pressure," she warned Paige, "but tell me if you feel any pain."

Paige nodded, her eyes fixed eagerly on the still-dark screen. Beside her, Henry reached out and took her hand, squeezing her fingers, encouragingly. Then, as Doctor Roberts pressed the wand into her stomach, a grainy image formed in the middle of the screen, and Paige gasped in amazement.

"There she is," she said, softly, as the image wavered on the screen. A low lub-dub sound filled the air, and she knew that it was the baby's heartbeat.

"Hi, baby," Henry said, and Paige didn't have to look over at him to know that he had a huge, goofy grin on his face.

Doctor Roberts moved the wand, and Paige drew in a sharp breath when something that looked distinctly like a face swam into view.

"She's looking at you, Mom," Ava spoke up, from where she was standing beside Doctor Roberts, and Paige could feel herself tearing up.

"Is it possible to tell the baby's gender?" she asked, curiously.

"It's a little early," Doctor Roberts told her. "Give it another couple of weeks."

The rest of the ultrasound only took about fifteen minutes, with Doctor Roberts declaring her baby to be in perfect health at the end. As the older woman lifted the wand away from her stomach, Paige sat bolt upright on the exam bed, jumping to the floor and heading straight for the door.

"What's wrong?" Henry asked, a note of concern in his voice.

"I drank nearly half a gallon of water before we got here!" Paige called back, as she headed down the hallway. "What do you think is wrong?"

She could hear Henry's laughter following her down the hallway, all the way to the bathroom.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** A million thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. It really makes my day to see what you think of this fic.

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><p>It was late when Henry dropped her off at her house. The lights were on in the living room, blazing brightly across the dark lawn, and there was a strange car parked on the side of the street in front of her house.<p>

"Who's that?" Henry asked, as he pulled up behind the car and put his own into park.

"Oh, I don't know," Paige said, with a shrug. "Probably one of Uncle Dave's work buddies. He has poker nights on Thursdays; maybe he moved it up."

Henry nodded, reaching across her to open her door before she could do it, herself. Paige rolled her eyes at his semi-gallant antics, leaning over and wrapping her arms around him in a quick hug.

"I'll see you at school, tomorrow," she told him, and then she surprised both of them by pecking a small kiss on his cheek.

"What was that for?" Henry asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

Paige just shrugged, giving him a little, enigmatic smile as she climbed out of the car.

"I'll see you, tomorrow," she repeated.

Henry looked like he was going to demand an explanation for her behavior, but then he just waved and drove away. Clearly, he was willing to let the matter drop, for at least a little while.

Paige headed up the driveway to the house, hitching her purse higher on her shoulder as she dug around for her house keys. But, the front door opened under her hand before she could unlock it, and she found herself meeting her aunt's inscrutable gaze.

"Aunt Julie, what's wrong?" she asked, cautiously, as she moved past the older woman and into the foyer, toeing her shoes off in the doorway.

"Nothing's wrong," Julie hastened to reassure her. "It's just – you'll see," she finished, frowning.

Thoroughly worried, now, Paige went into the living room. She saw her uncle, first, greeted by the older man's gentle smile. Jeff was slouched on the opposite side of the couch, and he smiled when he saw her, but the smile didn't match the hard look in his eyes as he practically glared holes in the wall opposite him.

Then, as she moved further into the living room, she saw exactly what the overprotective men in her family were staring so fiercely at. Nick was sitting one of the uncomfortable, hard-backed chairs from the dining room, an uneasy expression on his face.

Paige stopped short, her aunt's vague words suddenly making sense. Until he'd called, yesterday, she honestly hadn't given Nick very much thought. She certainly hadn't thought that he'd actually come to her house. She honestly hadn't thought that he'd cared about her or the baby enough for that.

But, he was here, now, and she was going to have to deal with him, one way or another.

She moved further into the living room, taking the space that Dave and Jeff had left open for her, and meeting Nick's surprised gaze, squarely.

"What do you want, Nick?" she asked, bluntly, dispensing with any of the usual pleasantries and getting right to the point.

"I was hoping that we could talk," Nick said, as he shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable with the hostile stares being lobbed his way. "In private, maybe?" he added, a hopeful note in his voice.

"No, I'm fine here," Paige said, blandly, leaning back against the cushions. "Go ahead and talk."

For a moment, something dark and sinister flashed in Nick's eyes, but it was gone so quickly that she almost thought that it was a trick of the light.

"I wanted to apologize for my behavior, for the past few weeks," Nick began, still shifting in his seat. "I was scared when you approached me with your news, and I overreacted. It was-" He paused, and took a deep breath, trying to gather his thoughts. "It was pointed out to me that the way I acted was selfish and immature."

"That's one way to put it," Dave muttered, under his breath, and Paige was hard-pressed to keep from cracking a grin.

"So, why are you here, now?" she asked Nick, keeping her voice level.

"I've been giving it a lot of thought over the past few weeks," Nick told her, "and I've decided that I want to be a part of my baby's life. I don't want my baby to think that I don't love it."

Paige didn't answer right away, still lost in her own thoughts. There was a part of her that cheered at seeing Nick step up and take some responsibility for their baby; after all, that was what she'd wanted ever since she'd found out that she was pregnant. But, there was another part that was uneasy with the whole thing, a part that just wanted to tell Nick to take a hike and never look back. She'd done fine without him for the last two months; she didn't need him, now.

_'But, this isn't about me,'_ Paige reminded herself, firmly. _'This is about my baby, and about what's best for her.'_

"I have a doctor's appointment next week," she finally said, looking over at Nick. "You can come to that."

"What about after that?" Nick asked, and his voice sounded almost hopeful.

"How about we take this one day at a time?" Paige suggested, instead, and she thought that she saw something like frustration flash across his eyes.

"I guess that's what we'll have to do, then," he finally said. "I just hope that I can convince you that I've changed, and that I'm serious about what I said."

"We'll see after next week," Paige repeated, firmly, and Nick nodded in agreement.

"Oh," he added, a second later, "my mother wants to meet you. I was thinking that you could come over for dinner, some night?"

"Sure," Paige said, figuring that she wasn't committing to anything serious just by agreeing to meet his family for dinner. After all, they were going to be involved in the baby's life, too.

With nothing left to say, Nick stood to go, and Paige escorted him to the front door. They parted with a guarded goodbye, and Paige watched him walk to his car, in silence. After he'd driven off, she shut the front door and headed back into the living room, where her family was still waiting for her.

"I don't like him," Julie said, bluntly, as Paige reclaimed her seat between Dave and Jeff, leaning against her uncle as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"I thought you didn't like him when he wasn't going to step up and be involved with the baby's life," Paige reminded her aunt.

"I just don't like him, period," Julie told her. "He's too slick, too polished. Henry's a good kid," she added, suggestively, and Paige laughed.

"Henry is an amazing guy," Paige agreed. "And, if things go there-" She trailed off, not wanting to dwell on something that she hadn't even discussed with Henry, yet. "I do think that I need to let Nick be involved in the baby's life," she said, changing the subject back to the original topic. "He deserves that kind of chance."

From beside her, Dave snorted, the sound rumbling through his chest. Paige could almost imagine what he had to say on the topic, having heard it, before.

"Uncle Dave, be nice," she said, looking at the older man. "Like it or not, he is a part of the baby's life. Which means he's going to be a part of mine."

"I just don't want you to rush into anything where this boy is concerned," Dave finally told her. "You've got a good head on your shoulders, Paige. Don't let him push you into anything you're not ready for."

"I won't," Paige promised. "All we're going to do is talk."

"Paige," Julie added, "you know that we will support you, no matter what choice you make."

"I know," Paige said, touched by her aunt's concern for her. "I love you guys."

Standing, she stretched, feeling her joints pop with the movement.

"I think I'm going to turn in, early," she said, as she headed for the stairs. "I'll see you guys in the morning."


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys are awesome, and a couple of you might even be psychic.

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><p>It took another couple of weeks to set a date for Paige to meet Nick's family. His family was always busy, it seemed, and every time Paige suggested a night that she could go to his house for dinner, Nick always had some excuse for why they couldn't meet. She was beginning to think that Nick was avoiding her, and she wondered if he was beginning to regret his promise to be involved with the baby.<p>

But, finally, he found a night that would work for his family. Paige had to bite back the impulse to tell him that she felt so honored, saying instead that she was looking forward to the chance to meet his family.

Although, privately, she wasn't sure how she felt about the whole thing.

Everything was so complicated, right now. Despite the fact that she and Nick were now connected through their baby, for the rest of their lives, they were still barely more than strangers. Their exchanges were extremely polite, and when they talked, it was more pleasantries than anything personal. She hadn't told Nick anything about her family or her life, and he hadn't shared anything like that with her. She couldn't imagine how they ever thought that they could be compatible.

Also complicating things was her relationship with Henry. Not that they'd gone beyond friendship, yet; Henry seemed to want to take things slowly, almost like he was afraid that she would think that he was taking advantage of her. Paige didn't mind, though. She wasn't ready to rush into anything with anyone, even her best friend.

_'I don't even know if Henry feels the same way about me that I do about him,'_ Paige thought, wryly, but then she remembered all the excuses he'd come up with to spend time with her, all the times she caught him staring at her with some strange expression on his face. _'Okay, maybe I do know how he feels about me. At least, I think I know.'_

Her rambling thoughts were cut off when Julie pulled to a stop in front of Nick's family home. Paige shot the huge mansion a dubious look, suddenly having second thoughts about going in there, even just for dinner.

"I can come with you, if you want," Julie said, almost reading her thoughts. "You don't have to go in there by yourself."

"I'm okay," Paige said, reassuringly, as she twisted around in her seat to face her aunt. "Besides, it's just dinner, right?"

Her words sounded weak, even to her ears, and Julie certainly didn't look convinced. But, finally, the older woman nodded, albeit reluctantly.

"I guess we have to let you go, sometime," she said, ruefully. "I just – I promised your mother that you would be safe with us, that I would protect you."

"It's just dinner," Paige repeated, leaning over and hugging her aunt. "And, I have to make nice with these people; they're going to be involved with me and the baby for the rest of our lives."

"I just don't like that boy," Julie told her, quietly. "Paige, I want you to promise me that you'll be careful."

"I will," Paige said, earnestly.

"And don't let them pressure you into anything," Julie stressed, emphatically. "Not even so much as another dinner with them, not if you don't feel comfortable."

"I won't," Paige assured her. "Trust me, Aunt Julie, I'm more than done with letting Nick push me around."

"All right," Julie relented. "You'll call me, if you need me to pick you up," she added, as Paige climbed out of the car.

"I will," Paige promised, and then she watched her aunt drive off, the car growing smaller in the distance.

Turning around, she looked at the huge mansion, apprehension filling her at the imposing sight. The house looked like the kind portrayed in horror movies, the one that lured in young, impressionable women looking for adventure.

_'Oh, knock it off,'_ Paige told herself, sternly, as she looked at the house. _'There is nothing evil lurking inside that house. Nick and his family are perfectly normal people.'_

But, she couldn't help the nerves that fluttered in her stomach as she started up the driveway to the front door.

She rang the doorbell, and the sound echoed through the house. While she waited, she smoothed down the front of the dress that she'd worn to make a good impression on Nick's family, silently lamenting the fact that she wasn't going to be able to wear her nice clothes for much longer.

The door opened a few seconds later, and Paige found herself facing a stone-faced man in a stiff, formal suit. The man eyed her, silently, for a few seconds, and Paige forced herself not to fidget under the man's stern gaze.

"You must be Miss Matthews," the man finally said, and Paige held out a hand for him to shake. "This way," the man added, spinning on his heel and ignoring her hand which she lowered to her side, feeling foolish.

The man announced her when he escorted her into the dining room, and now she did fidget, finding herself being stared at by half a dozen people. Nick was the first to break the uncomfortable staring contest, pasting a smile on his face as he walked over to where she was standing.

"I'm glad you could make it," he said, as he led her to the empty chair beside where he'd been sitting.

"Five minutes late," his mother muttered, quietly, and Paige blushed, furiously.

"We ran into traffic," she said, defensively, not wanting to explain how much time she'd spent staring anxiously at the house.

Nick's mother just raised a skeptical eyebrow at her, clearly not believing a word, and Paige clenched her hands into fists under the table to stop them from shaking.

_'I am not going to let you intimidate me,'_ she thought, fiercely, and she thought that she saw a smirk flash across the older woman's face.

"Paige Matthews," she introduced herself, holding a hand out toward the woman. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Cheryl Long," the woman replied, taking her hand.

To Paige's surprise, a distinctly unpleasant look flashed across the older woman's face for the briefest moment, her lips curling up with distaste. The expression disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared, and Paige could almost convince herself that she'd imagined the whole thing. But, she wasn't imagining the pointed look that Cheryl shot her son a second later.

_'I guess I'm not going to be going on her Christmas card list,'_ Paige thought, wryly.

Then, she turned her attention back to Nick as he introduced her to his siblings. The scowling, dark-haired man in a pristine suit was his older brother Duncan, and the older man smugly informed her that he was a lawyer, dropping different names, like a district attorney called Turner, like she was expected to know who they were. Paige just shrugged and smiled her way through the spiel, figuring that they were just trying to intimidate her.

Next was Nick's twin brother, Gregory. He had the same cold, condescending tones of his mother and older brother, and Paige instantly disliked him. Their younger sister, Jolene, was much the same way.

Paige was starting to hate the whole family, actually, and she idly wondered if it was too late to back out of having Nick get involved with the baby.

A spike of pain shot through her forehead at the thought, and she winced, rubbing at her temples. She'd had headaches before, but nothing that came on as suddenly as this.

"Paige?" Nick asked, quietly, and she looked up at the sound of his voice. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Paige assured him, dropping her hand from her forehead to rest on her abdomen. "Just a headache. I probably just need to eat."

"Mason!" Cheryl called out, sharply, hearing Paige. "Get our guest some bread, please. And, dinner is-"

"Coming, ma'am," the stone-faced butler, presumably Mason, replied, as he put a plate of rolls in front of Paige, before disappearing into the kitchen, again.

Mason came back a few minutes later, his arrival breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the room. Dinner was served, quickly, and they started eating, still without saying anything. Paige was sure that the food was delicious, and she was certainly hungry, but she was so nervous that everything tasted like ash in her mouth.

"So, Paige," Cheryl said, about fifteen minutes later, "have you found out if you're having a boy or a girl, yet?"

"I still have a few more weeks before I find that out," Paige told her. "I don't really care either way; I just want the baby to be healthy."

Cheryl made a noncommittal noise, her gaze unusually sharp as she stared at Paige.

"You're, um, you're welcome to come with me, Nick, to the appointment, tomorrow," Paige stammered, nervously, looking away from the older woman to glance over at Nick.

"I actually have things to do, tomorrow, but I'll try to be there," Nick said, without elaborating, and Paige bit back a frustrated sigh.

For all his claims that Nick wanted to be involved with the baby, he wasn't making much of an effort. This was the second appointment that he'd begged out of, claiming that he had more important things to do. Paige couldn't help but wonder what was supposed to be more important than their child, and she wondered if it was a reflection of the kind of father he was going to be.

_'I think I made a big mistake in coming here,'_ she thought, even as she was considering how to gracefully bow out of the rest of the evening and have Julie come pick her up.

A second later, another spike of pain shot through her head, and she almost doubled over in agony. She closed her eyes to shut out the light from the chandelier that was suddenly too bright, rubbing futilely at the bridge of her nose to try and stave off the pain.

"Do you maybe have some aspirin?" she asked Cheryl, who was watching her with a sharp-eyed gaze.

The older woman made a silent gesture to Mason, who'd been hovering in the doorway, and a few seconds later, a glass of water and a couple of white pills appeared beside her plate. Paige gratefully swallowed the pills down, gulping almost desperately at the water. When she put the glass down, Cheryl was still staring at her, with that same, unnerving gaze.

"So, Paige," she said, quietly, "have you given any thought to your future with my son?"

"My future?" Paige repeated, feeling stunned. "I – um – no, not really. I mean, I guess I want-"

She trailed off, nervously, not sure how she was going to finish her sentence. Not that it seemed to make much of a difference, since Cheryl seemed to have her own ideas in mind.

"I was thinking about a fall wedding," Cheryl told her, and Paige choked on the bite of food she'd just taken.

"Excuse me?" she demanded, incredulously.

"Did you want to get married before the baby was born?" Cheryl asked her, curiously. "And, here, I thought you would want to get married after you got your figure back, such as it is," she added, a tone of condescension in her voice. I mean, being a teenage mother is going to be hard enough on you; I was just trying to make things easier."

"Married?" Paige echoed, slumping back against her chair.

"Well, it would have happened sooner or later," Nick spoke up, nonchalantly, and Paige silently bristled at the self-assured tone in his voice.

_'But, I don't want to marry you,'_ she thought, immediately, wincing as yet another jolt of pain hit her, this one bad enough that, for a moment, she couldn't even breathe. _'I don't love you; I don't even know you.'_

"I don't know," Paige said, stalling for time as everyone else at the table looked at her, expectantly. "Marriage is huge, Nick, and I just don't know if I'm ready for something like that." Letting out a weak chuckle, she added, "We're just kids, ourselves, really."

"Should have thought about that before you got knocked up," Jolene muttered, from the far end of the table, subsiding when her mother shot her a sharp look.

She hadn't bothered with being quiet, obviously not concerned if Paige heard her, and a smirk crossed the younger girl's face when Paige blushed with embarrassment. She could feel tears threatening to emerge, but she fought them back with an effort. She cried enough, these days, with the way her hormones were out of whack; she certainly didn't need to have a breakdown in front of a bunch of near-strangers.

_'I didn't ask for any of this to happen,'_ she thought, angrily, blinking back the tears that pooled in her eyes. _'I'm scared all the time, and it's not like you're being any kind of help.'_ A spike of pain shot through her head, and she rubbed and her temples, distractedly. _'I just want to do what right for my baby.'_

_'Which is marrying Nick,'_ a little voice in the back of her head piped up, persuasively. _'Look at this place; it's huge, and these people are obviously not hurting for money. And it seems pretty clear that they're not going to turn their backs on Nick, or the baby. We'd have a good life, here, and we'd never want for anything.'_

_'But, I don't know him,'_ Paige argued with herself, wondering absently if she was losing her mind.

_'But, I can get to know him,'_ the little voice added. _'He doesn't really know me, either, but he's willing to make an effort, and I can hardly do any less than that. Maybe I need to give him a chance.'_

"Well, Paige?" Nick asked, looking at her, hopefully. "What do you say?"

"I don't know," she admitted, softly, and Nick reached out, taking her hand.

"I know you're scared," he said, quietly, squeezing her hand. "I am, too."

There was a vulnerability in his voice that she'd never heard, before, and Paige looked up, startled. She found herself caught by Nick's piercing gaze, his hazel eyes staring at her so intensely that it felt like he was looking into her soul.

"I know that this probably isn't the fairy tale you dreamed of as a little girl," he said, still holding onto her hand. "And I'm no white knight. But, I promise you, I will be the best man, the best father, that I can be. Our baby will be loved," he added, reaching out and brushing the fingers of his free hand over the bump that was just beginning to show. "I promise you that. I know that sometimes things will be hard, but we'll always have each other. Our baby will never be loved, more."

He smiled at her, encouragingly, giving her hand another gentle squeeze.

"What do you say, Paige?" he asked, an entreating tone in his voice. "Will you marry me?"

_'I love my baby,'_ she thought, as she looked at the hopeful expression on Nick's face. _'And, maybe, I could learn to love you, too.'_

"Yes," she murmured, watching as Nick's face lit up with excitement. "Yes, I will marry you, Nick."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **Cookies to **missycole23** and **scifiromance** for figuring out the Long family secret. And cookies to everyone else, because you guys are awesome. Keep reading and reviewing; I love hearing what you think.

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><p>"You're going to marry him?"<p>

Paige sighed as she climbed up onto the exam table, looking over at Henry who was staring at her with a look of sheer disbelief on his face. Not that she blamed him; she'd been busy for the last few weeks with family, and school, and Henry had been adjusting to another new foster family, and they hadn't really had any time to talk. And, now that they finally got to see each other for longer than two seconds, she dropped a bombshell on him.

"What happened to wanting to take things slowly?" he asked, before she could say anything. "I thought you were just going to talk to Nick about custody arrangements."

"I was just as surprised as you were when his mother brought it up," Paige admitted. "But, it really is the most practical thing to do, and it's what's best for the baby."

"What do Dave and Julie think about this?" Henry asked, and Paige couldn't help but think of how strange it was that he was closer to her family than Nick was.

"They were shocked," Paige told him, "but, they said that if this is really what I want, then they'll stand beside me all the way."

"Is it what you want?" Henry asked, quietly, and Paige jerked her shoulder in a shrug.

"Well, it's not exactly a fairy tale ending," she admitted, "but I think it's the right thing to do. Hey," she added, looking over at him, "can you grab my coat off the chair? I've got a bag of peanuts in the pocket, and I'm starving."

"Are you allowed to eat before the appointment?" Henry asked, skeptically.

"Yeah," Paige told him, "I'm just not allowed to pee."

Henry snorted out a laugh, leaning over to grab her coat from where she'd thrown it on the chair, earlier. As he moved, something fell out of his pocket, and she thought it was a small, black box. But, Henry bent over, snatching the object off the floor so fast that she barely got a chance to look at it. He shoved the object back in his pocket, his cheeks bright red, and he handed her the small bag of peanuts without a word.

"What was that thing?" Paige asked, curiously, nodding at his pocket, where he was still hiding his hand, the shape of his fist clearly outlined against the material.

"Nothing," Henry said, quickly, his tone indicating just the opposite.

But, before Paige could press the matter, the door to the exam room opened. Paige was expecting to see Doctor Roberts entering the room, but Prue came in, a beaming smile on her face.

"Hey," she greeted them, cheerfully, as she partially shut the door behind her. "There was a car pulling into the lot behind mine; looked like your aunt was driving. They'll probably be here in a minute."

"How many people are coming to this appointment?" Paige demanded, incredulously.

"You're finding out the sex of the baby," Prue pointed out, as she dropped into an empty chair. "You can't blame us for wanting to be here for it, can you?"

"I guess not," Paige admitted. "Hey, Prue? Thanks for being here."

"You're like a little sister to me," Prue told her, grinning. "And where else would I be when my sister needed me?"

"Aw, thanks," Paige said, touched by the obvious affection in the other woman's voice. "You're like the sister I never had, too."

"Nah," Henry opined from where he was sitting. "You could never be siblings; you don't fight nearly enough."

"He's got a point," Prue admitted. "I fight with my sisters all the time, especially lately, and especially with Phoebe. You and I get along way too well to really be sisters."

The door opened, again, letting in the rest of her family, and Paige felt her heart sink when she didn't see Nick with them.

_'He promised he'd be here,'_ she thought, pushing back the wave of disappointment. _'No,'_ she corrected herself, a second later, _'He said that he'd try to be here, just like all the other appointments. I just want him to finally follow through on something, show some commitment to me and the baby.'_

But, she didn't voice any of that out loud to her family. Despite their promises of support, things were tenuous enough with Nick that she didn't want to jeopardize their opinions of him. Instead, she relaxed against the exam table and chatted idly with everyone until Doctor Roberts arrived.

"How are you feeling, today, Paige?" Doctor Roberts asked, as she washed her hands.

"My nausea finally seems to be gone for good," Paige replied, cheerfully. "And, I think I felt the baby kick, yesterday."

"You're about far enough along for it," Doctor Roberts told her. "Have you had any cramping, any aches and pains, anything like that?"

"Not really," Paige said, thinking about it. "Well, um-"

"Yes?" Doctor Roberts prompted, gently, when she trailed off, uncomfortably.

"Sometimes, I get these really bad headaches," Paige admitted, after a moment. "They started a few weeks ago, when I went to dinner with Nick and his family."

"What are you doing when you get these headaches?" Doctor Roberts asked, and Paige shrugged.

"Nothing in particular," she replied, as she reached up to fiddle with the necklace that Nick's mother had given her, as a welcome to the family present. "I mean, the first couple of times were at dinner, that night, and the others have been kind of sporadic. One was last week, when Nick told me that he couldn't come to an appointment with me, and the other was yesterday."

"And, what happened, yesterday?" Doctor Roberts asked, a neutral tone in her voice that made Paige feel like she was talking to a psychiatrist, rather than her OB-GYN.

"We were talking about what we were going to do after the baby was born," Paige told her, uncomfortably aware of everyone else in the room listening intently. "Nick was talking about planning our wedding, and his mother buying us a house, and things were just moving really fast. And, I guess I just got frustrated with him when he didn't listen to me, and I kind of yelled at him. The next thing I knew, my head felt like it was going to explode."

"Have you ever had a headache come on that suddenly, before?" Doctor Roberts asked, a note of concern in her voice.

"Not like that," Paige said, honestly. "It kind of scared me, actually, and I think it scared Nick, too. We stopped arguing, immediately."

"Well, it sounds like these headaches of yours are brought on by stress," Doctor Roberts told her. "If you keep having them, you could find yourself in some trouble. High blood pressure, preeclampsia, it could even hurt the baby-"

"Okay, no stress," Paige said, cutting Doctor Roberts off. "I'll do anything to keep my baby healthy."

"I know you will," Doctor Roberts said, smiling at her. "So, are you ready to see your baby?"

"Absolutely," Paige said, eagerly, grinning happily at Henry when he reached out and squeezed her hand.

She lay back on the exam table and pulled her shirt up to reveal her stomach. She shivered when Doctor Roberts smeared the conductive gel on her abdomen, but she stayed still as the older woman placed the ultrasound wand on her stomach.

"Here we go," Doctor Roberts murmured, quietly, and then a fuzzy image sprang to life on the screen.

The image cleared up after a few seconds, and Paige felt a huge grin break out over her face when she saw her baby on the screen.

"Everything looks healthy so far," Doctor Roberts commented, as she moved the wand around on Paige's stomach. "Nice, strong heartbeat, looks like ten fingers and toes-"

"Can you tell if it's a boy or a girl?" Paige asked, her eyes still fixed firmly on the screen.

She didn't want to look away for even a second and miss her baby doing something memorable. Even if her baby was only about the size of an orange, and probably not capable of doing much, anyway.

"Let's take a look," Doctor Roberts told her, shifting the wand, slightly. "Yeah, I think it is-"

"What is it?" Paige asked, impatiently, when Doctor Roberts trailed off, maddeningly.

"Mind you, I'm not one hundred percent positive," Doctor Roberts cautioned. "But, it looks like you're having a girl, Paige."

"A girl?" Paige echoed, staring at the screen in amazement, while her family celebrated, around her. "I'm having a daughter?"

"You're gonna have a little girl," Henry told her, and she glanced away from the screen to see a huge grin lighting up his face.

"I'm having a daughter," Paige repeated, feeling a huge, sappy grin of her own stretching across her face as she beamed up at him. "Henry-"

The rest of what she intended to say was cut off when the door opened, suddenly. She broke off as she glanced over at the door, seeing Nick coming into the room. He looked at her, locking eyes with her for a moment, and an intense buzzing filled her ears. For just a second, she felt dizzy, like the ground had just dropped out from underneath her, and when everything returned to normal, she couldn't remember what she'd been about to say.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Nick apologized, coming over to stand beside her, shouldering Henry out of the way in the process. "What did I miss?"

_'A lot,'_ Paige thought, feeling a flash of annoyance for his cavalier attitude, but then she winced when a twinge of pain shot through her head.

She rubbed absently at her temples as she looked back at the screen, staring at the image of her daughter.

"A girl," she said, softly, her earlier excitement suddenly subdued. "We're going to have a daughter, Nick."

She looked over at her fiancé, hoping to see some of her own excitement reflected on his face. Instead, he was staring at the ultrasound screen with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Mother was expecting a boy," he finally said, and Paige could feel her heart sink at the flat tone of his voice. "But, I imagine a girl will still make her happy."

"Right," Paige said, quietly, pushing back the disappointment that surfaced at his careless comment. "But, what about you?" she pressed. "Are you happy?"

She waited, anxiously, for his reply, but Nick just shrugged without answering. And, she couldn't help but wonder if his silence was all the answer she needed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Thanks a million to my amazing readers and reviewers. You guys rock. And, as many of you have guessed, Nick and his family are indeed demons.

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><p><em><strong>June 3rd, 1995<strong>_

"I am never letting you drive, again."

Paige shot Henry an exasperated glare as she peeled her fingers off the door handle, shaking her hand to try and ease the cramping muscles.

"Oh, come on," Henry protested, as he climbed out of the driver's seat. "I was not going that fast."

"No, you weren't," Paige agreed, reaching over her enormous stomach to undo her seatbelt, "but you seem to have forgotten how to use the brakes."

"I stopped at that light," Henry argued, scooting around the car and opening her door for her before she could. "I just didn't stop all the way."

"You were lucky that there were no cops around to see you," Paige informed him. "What would Dan think if you got a ticket? Or, your foster parents?"

"Yeah, I don't want to talk about them," Henry said, shortly, and Paige could hear an undercurrent of tension in his voice, so she let the matter drop.

As they walked across the parking lot, Henry slipped an arm casually around her waist. Paige leaned into his embrace, feeling the warmth of his hand where it was resting against the side of her abdomen. And, she guessed that the baby could feel it, too, because she suddenly kicked out against Henry's hand, making both of them jump in surprise.

"She kicked me," Henry said, a grin spreading over his face.

"She hasn't been doing that a lot, lately," Paige told him. "She must know that it's you."

"Well," Henry said, with a pleased smile, "that just means she has good taste."

Shaking her head in exasperation, Paige added, "Nick was complaining the other day that he never gets to feel the baby kick."

She winced, inwardly, when she realized how her statement had sounded, not missing the eyebrow Henry raised at her as he held the door to the clinic lobby open for her. But, to his credit, he didn't say anything.

"How is Nick?" he asked, neutrally, as they walked toward the elevators.

"He's fine," Paige said, shortly. "I, um, I don't really want to talk about it," she muttered, sheepishly.

Henry nodded, thankfully letting the matter drop, and Paige breathed a quiet sigh of relief. As they stopped in front of the elevator, she reached out and pushed the up button.

"So, where are we going?" Henry asked, as they waited for the doors to open.

"Top floor," Paige told him. "Doctor Roberts is on vacation, for the next week, so I'm being seen by her partner, Doctor Dyers."

"And, for that, we have to go all the way to the top floor?" Henry grumbled, good-naturedly.

"That's where her office is," Paige pointed out, entering the elevator when the doors slid open.

They were the only ones on the elevator when it started its slow ascent. Paige leaned back against the wall, folding her arms over her stomach and closing her eyes as the numbers on the display slowly got larger. Beside her, Henry was humming tunelessly under his breath, something that Paige vaguely recognized from the radio.

Then, suddenly, the elevator jerked to a stop, and Paige stumbled forward, her eyes flying open in shock. Henry reacted, instantly, wrapping his arms around her to keep her on her feet, and she clung to him for a second.

"What the hell was that?" she gasped, and Henry jerked his shoulder in a shrug.

"No clue," he said. "Maybe we lost power?"

He went to the door, pressing the intercom button and waiting. But, they got nothing but silence, and he turned back to Paige, his shoulders slumping.

"I think we definitely lost power," he told her.

"We've been having those rolling blackouts, lately," Paige reminded him, as she slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "Could be one of those."

"The last one lasted five hours," Henry retorted, as he joined her on the floor. "Do you really want to be stuck in this elevator for that long?"

"No," Paige replied, "but we don't exactly have a choice, do we? I mean," she went on, gesturing at her enormous stomach, "I'm not really in any condition to go scaling the wires."

"I get it," Henry said, as he leaned against the wall. "We're stuck."

"At least we're together," Paige said, leaning against him as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I'd hate to be stuck in here, alone."

"Yeah, about that," Henry said. "Wasn't Nick supposed to be coming to this appointment with you?"

"Nick's busy," Paige said, surprising even herself with the bitterness in her voice. "He's always busy, and he never has time for me or the baby. I don't understand why he even-"

She broke off, suddenly, as a spike of pain shot through her head. She rubbed at her temples, trying to breathe through the pain.

"You okay?" Henry asked, concern in his voice as he rubbed her back, gently. "Another headache?"

"Yeah," Paige gritted out, closing her eyes to block out the light. "They still come on, sometimes, especially when Nick and I-"

"When you fight?" Henry prompted, when she trailed off, and Paige sighed, not sure how she felt about being so apparently transparent to her best friend.

"Who says we're fighting?" she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, and Henry shot her a knowing look.

"You haven't smiled once when you've said his name," he told her. "And there's this little line in the middle of your forehead that just keeps getting deeper and deeper." When she sighed, heavily, he squeezed her shoulders. "Come on, talk to me."

"We're fighting," Paige confessed, after a few seconds. "I haven't even told Julie and Dave; I don't want them to worry."

"Fighting about what?" Henry asked, quietly, and Paige frowned as she thought about her answer.

"Name it," she told him. "Where we're going to live, how we're going to raise the baby, her name-" She trailed off, letting out a short, bitter laugh. "He got upset when I told him that I wanted you to be her godfather."

"You want me to be the baby's godfather?" Henry asked, and she smiled at the happy tone in his voice.

"I told him that it was the one thing I wasn't going to compromise on," she replied. "I want you and Prue to be her godparents. You two have become like family over the past eight months, and if anything, god forbid, should happen, I want to know that someone I love and trust is looking after my daughter."

"You love me?" Henry asked, teasingly, and a blush spread over her cheeks.

"You're my best friend," she started, and then she broke off when a sharp pain shot through her abdomen.

"What's wrong?" Henry asked, seeing her grimace. "Another headache?"

"No," Paige said, squeezing his arm as she rode out the wave of pain, "it's lower than that."

"How low?" Henry asked, and Paige shot him a wry look.

"Guess," she gritted out, and Henry stared at her in disbelief.

"Oh, you're kidding," he said, flatly.

"Yeah, I'm a real walking cliché," Paige said, breathing a sigh of relief when the pain subsided. "Only I could manage to go into labor in a stalled elevator."


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: **Thanks a million to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. Just to clarify a couple of things, Nick and his family aren't going anywhere for a while, yet, and for those who never read the original _Down the Twisted Path_, or who may have forgotten, this story is not going to have a happy ending. I'm sorry in advance, but that's the way this one has to end.

* * *

><p>"Aren't you supposed to be breathing, or something?"<p>

"I am breathing," Paige said, with a chuckle, as she looked up at Henry who was pacing the small confines of the elevator. "You look a little pale, though. Maybe you should sit down."

"I'm breathing just fine," Henry muttered, defensively, but he stopped pacing and sat down beside her.

When he started drumming his fingers anxiously on his leg, Paige reached out and covered his fingers with her hand.

"You okay?" she asked, and Henry laughed.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he countered, and Paige shrugged.

She reached back, bunching up Henry's coat that he'd given her to use as a pillow, but Henry tugged her shoulders until her head was resting in his lap.

"Figured I'm comfier than my jacket," he said, when she looked up at him, and she grinned.

"You are pretty soft," she told him, relaxing when he started rubbing her shoulders. "You know, you don't need to be freaking out."

"We've been stuck in this elevator for over three hours," Henry pointed out. "The intercom is still down, we can't contact anyone, and we don't even know if anyone knows that we're stuck in here. And, oh, yeah," he added, "you're in labor. Why wouldn't I be freaking out?"

"Would you please relax?" Paige asked, patiently. "I've barely had any contractions since the first one."

"Liar," Henry said, succinctly, and Paige looked at him in surprise. "I know you've been trying to hide it, but you get this look on your face every time a contraction hits. I've timed it out to about fifteen minutes, now."

"All right, so I've been having contractions," Paige admitted, sheepishly. "It's just, you were kind of freaking out, and I didn't want you to worry even more. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," Henry said, with a quiet sigh. "The last thing you need is me making this harder on you."

"I do need you to distract me, though," Paige told him. "The contractions are starting to get worse."

"Okay," Henry said, thoughtfully, "you said that you and Nick had picked a name for the baby. What's it going to be?"

"Well," Paige started, "her middle name is going to be Christine."

"After your mother?" Henry guessed, and Paige nodded. "What about her first name?" he went on.

"Paxton," Paige told him, chuckling at the surprised look that flashed across his face. "It's an old family name, some distant relative of Nick's. The name was Cheryl's idea," she added, with a small frown. "Lately, it seems like everything is Cheryl's idea."

"Interfering mother-in-law?" Henry asked, shrewdly, and Paige just shook her head.

"Let's just say that things would be a hell of a lot less stressful if Nick's family wasn't involved," she replied. "Nick-"

She broke off, gasping in pain when a contraction hit. She gripped Henry's hand, squeezing tightly as she rode out the pain. When it passed, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief, letting go of Henry's hand.

"That wasn't fifteen minutes," Henry noted, as he massaged feeling back into his fingers.

"More like five," Paige said, slumping back against him. "This baby is coming fast," she continued, trying to keep her voice light. But, from the sympathetic look in Henry's eyes, she hadn't been able to hide the tension running through her.

"You okay?" he asked, quietly.

"I'm scared," Paige admitted, quietly. "I'm glad you're here, Henry."

"I'm glad that I'm here, too," Henry told her, leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. "So, keep talking. What did you want to name the baby?"

"I hadn't settled on anything," Paige answered. "I was leaning toward Juliet, maybe Prudence, something with significance, you know?"

"Those would have been nice names," Henry mused. "But, really, Paxton?"

"It's not a bad name," Paige said, defensively. "I'm getting used to it. Pax Christine Matthews."

"It's not going to be Long?" Henry asked, and Paige shook her head.

"I'm going to keep my name after the wedding," she told him. "And, I told Nick that I wanted Pax to have some part of my family, my heritage. He agreed."

"You sound surprised by that," Henry commented, and Paige shrugged.

"Everything seems to turn into a huge battle, lately," she replied. "I'm actually surprised when we don't fight about stuff."

Henry frowned, at that, and it was clear that there was something that he wanted to say. But, he kept quiet, at least until Paige poked at him.

"Out with it," she prompted, when he looked at her, curiously. "Come on, I know you're dying to say something."

"Are you-" Henry started, and then he trailed off, awkwardly. "Are you really sure that you should be marrying Nick?" he finished, in a rush, and from the look on his face, he was expecting her to be angry.

But, Paige couldn't be angry with him. Not when he was asking her the same thing that she'd been asking herself for the last five months.

"I'm not sure," she told him, quietly, after a minute. "To be honest, I don't even know if I like Nick, and here I am, planning to spend the rest of my life with him. Things are just moving so damn fast-"

"So call off the wedding," Henry suggested, hesitantly.

"There are some days when I want nothing more," Paige confided in him. "Just pack a bag and disappear. Give Nick back the ring, and this ugly necklace his mother gave me-" She tugged, irritated, at the thin gold chain around her neck. "I even don't know why I'm doing this," she said, quietly. "I thought that I was doing the right thing, that I was making a better life for my baby, but what if I was wrong? What if I-"

She broke off with a sharp cry, curling into a fetal position as pain wracked her body. Contractions, worse than the previous ones, and a splitting headache that made her feel like her head was about to explode. There was a ringing in her ears, and the chain around her neck burned on her skin.

Behind her, she could hear Henry talking to her, a sharp note of concern in his voice. His arms were wrapped around her, holding on tightly, and his voice was a low, soothing murmur in her ear. Paige clung, desperately, to the sound of his voice, trying to ride out the overwhelming pain.

She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. There was a stabbing pain in her chest that matched the stabbing pain in her abdomen, and a jolt of fear ran through her.

"My baby," she forced out, tears running down her cheeks.

"Shh, shh," Henry crooned, gently. "You're going to be okay. Pax is going to be okay. I promise."

"I'm scared," she whispered.

"I'm here," Henry told her. "I've got you, Paige. You're okay."

The world was going gray in front of her eyes, but she forced the darkness back. Henry became her anchor, her touchstone, and she focused solely on the sound of his voice.

Several minutes passed before the pain subsided. When she could finally breathe, again, she slumped weakly against Henry, feeling his arms tighten around her.

"You scared the hell out of me," Henry told her, his voice quiet.

"I scared the hell out of myself," Paige replied, her own voice shaky.

She yelped a couple seconds later when the elevator suddenly started moving again, chuckling weakly when she realized what was happening.

"Looks like we're finally getting out of here," Henry commented, sounding relieved.

"Took them long enough," Paige replied, relaxing when the elevator stopped on the bottom floor and the doors slid open.

A team of paramedics was waiting for them when the doors opened, and they immediately moved to get Paige on her feet and out of the elevator.

"We got called as soon as the power went down," one of the paramedics explained, as they loaded Paige onto a waiting stretcher. "You know you've been in there for three hours?"

"Yeah," Paige said, exchanging a wry look with Henry, "we know. I've been having contractions," she added, as they wheeled her toward the doors. "They're about five minutes apart."

"Is this your first baby?" the second paramedic asked, and when Paige nodded, he went on, "We'll do an exam once we're on route to the hospital, but first babies tend to take their time. Chances are, labor will stall for a bit, and then pick up in a few hours."

"Hours?" Paige echoed, incredulously.

"Longest labor I've ever seen," the first paramedic piped up, a thoughtful tone in her voice, "took nearly seventeen hours."

"Seventeen?" Paige repeated, weakly. "I don't want to be in labor for seventeen hours."

"You'll be fine," Henry told her, reassuringly, patting her on the shoulder as she was being loaded into the ambulance. "I'll meet you at the hospital, okay?"

Paige nodded, wordlessly, resisting the urge to cling to his hand as he pulled away. She locked eyes with Henry for as long as she could, until the paramedics shut the ambulance doors. Then, the driver flipped the siren on, and they sped down the road, screaming, toward the hospital.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. And because I don't say it nearly often enough, a million thanks to my amazing beta, **liron-aria**, for putting up with my rambling, and bouts of craziness, and late-night emails going "Oh my god, this is going to be so awesome!" Without her, this series probably never would have seen the light.

Also, a question: I took the original Down the Twisted Path down when I first started posting Gossamer, but I've been getting a lot of requests for it. Should I repost the original fic, and leave it up for good, this time?

* * *

><p>"Push, push, push-"<p>

Paige glared at the overly-cheerful doctor egging her on as she bore down, her hands fisting tightly in the sheets of the hospital bed she was lying on. She clenched her jaw, trying to ride out the pain. When it passed, she relaxed back against the pillows, slowly uncurling her fingers and letting out a shaky breath.

"Good job!" Doctor Dyers chirped, beaming at her, and Paige had to force herself not to roll her eyes.

Dyers' hyperactive state, aside, the woman had arrived from the clinic almost at the same time as Paige, and she'd nothing but completely professional and attentive. She was just so insufferably cheerful.

_'If Pax is healthy,'_ Paige thought, closing her eyes as she slumped back against the pillows, _'she can turn cartwheels around the room, for all I care.'_

"Paige, I need to step out for a moment," Dyers told her, "but I'll be back in just a second, all right?"

Paige cracked open an eye, flapping a hand at the older woman in acknowledgement. The room fell into silence as Dyers left, and Paige sighed in relief. She let herself drift off, listening to the sounds of the hospital outside her door, but she was jolted out of her dazed state when she sensed someone sitting down in the seat beside her bed.

Paige opened her eyes, expecting to see Julie, Dave, or even Henry sitting beside her. The three of them had been drifting in and out of her room ever since she'd been admitted to the hospital, and she'd finally kicked them all out about half an hour earlier, ordering them to go get something to eat. And, it wouldn't have surprised her to find that one, or all of them, was back to hovering over her, anxiously.

But, to her surprise, Nick was sitting by her bed, his shoulders slumped and his head hanging. There were lines on his face that she didn't remember seeing before, and he looked exhausted.

"Nick?" she asked, softly, and he bolted upright, staring at her in shock.

"Paige," he said, blinking at her, owlishly. "You're awake. I thought you were asleep."

"Nah," Paige told him. Patting her stomach, fondly, she added, "When she's not trying to come out the normal way, she seems determined to try and kick her way out. She moves every time I get comfortable, and then I'm awake, again."

"This is really happening, isn't it?" Nick asked, quietly, a slow smile curving his lips. "We're going to meet our daughter. It's finally starting to seem real, you know?"

"It's seemed pretty real for a while, actually," Paige said, dryly, and Nick had the good grace to look sheepish. "Are you okay?" she asked, concerned, when he fell silent, again, a strange look on his eyes.

"I've been talking with my mother," Nick began, and Paige winced, sympathetically. Cheryl could put a damper on anyone's day. "We argued," Nick told her. "She wants me to follow in Duncan's footsteps, go into law."

"Do you want to?" Paige asked, carefully, feeling eerily like she was echoing the conversation that she'd had with Henry.

"I don't know what I want," Nick said, a frustrated tone in his voice. He dragged a hand through his hair, making it stand up on end. "I think we should move," he said, abruptly, and Paige stared at him in shock.

"Now?" she asked, incredulously, and Nick snorted out a laugh.

"After the baby is born," he elaborated. "I think we should move out of San Francisco, maybe even California."

"And where would we go?" Paige asked, in disbelief.

"New York, maybe," Nick suggested, waving his hand around for emphasis. "Florida, Washington DC, Paris-"

"As in France?" Paige asked, doubtfully, and Nick shrugged, slumping back against the back of his chair. "Nick, we're broke, we're going to be taking care of a newborn baby, and neither of us is even eighteen, yet."

"So?" Nick muttered, mulishly. "We'd find a way to make it work."

"I'd be leaving my entire family behind," Paige reminded him, gently. "So would you."

"That's kind of the point," Nick said, bluntly. "Paige-"

He broke off, sounding even more frustrated. There was an almost lost look in his eyes, and Paige had the feeling that she was seeing a side of him that he very rarely revealed to anyone else.

"If we stay here," Nick began, quietly, "then my mother will want to be involved with the baby. She'll push and push until we lose our voices fighting with her, until her way of life is imposed on our child."

"We won't let her," Paige said, bristling at the thought of Cheryl trying to take over her baby's life.

"You don't understand," Nick said, pleadingly. "She's relentless. She's like a pit bull; she just won't let go of something she wants, and she wants our baby." Shaking his head, he added, "The way I grew up, everything was always about loyalty, and dedication, and status, and I don't want that kind of life for our baby. I don't want Pax to grow up like that; I want her to have a better life than I did."

Paige looked at him, curiously, wondering what he could have been talking about. From what she understood, Nick had led a privileged life – the best schools, never wanting for money. Sure, his family could be overbearing at times, but weren't all families like that at times?

_'But, I guess a golden cage is still a cage,"_ she thought, after a moment. _'And, I hate his mother. Why would I be pushing for him to be on good terms with her? Things would be easier if she wasn't involved; Nick and I could finally breathe and get to know one another.'_

"Do you really want to leave San Francisco?" she asked, quietly, and Nick shrugged, looking defeated.

"Do you really want to stay?" he countered, just as quietly, and Paige sighed.

"We don't have to decide anything right now," she reminded him. "Let's just get through the rest of today. Once Pax is born, we'll figure out the rest."

Nick nodded, some of the shadows leaving his eyes as he smiled at her.

"I'm sorry that I've been so distant, lately," he said, as he reached out and took her hand, twining their fingers together. "With everything that's been happening, lately, well – I remember promising you once that I was going to be the best father I could. And, I intend to live up to that promise."

"Thank you," Paige told him, quietly. The words felt inadequate, but she didn't really know what else to say.

Doctor Dyers bustled back into the room, then, saving her from having to think of anything else to say. The woman smiled when she saw Nick sitting beside her bed.

"And, you must be the proud daddy," she cooed, and Nick shot Paige an incredulous look.

Paige felt her lips quirking into an answering grin, and she fought the impulse to laugh at the stunned look on Nick's face.

"Yes," Nick finally answered, fighting a grin of his own, "I'm the baby's father."

"You both must be so happy," Doctor Dyers went on, and Nick nodded.

"I am," he said, quietly, and he sounded sincere for the first time since Paige had told him the news of her pregnancy.

"Well, Paige," Doctor Dyers went on, checking the various monitors she was hooked up to, "have you had any more contractions?"

"A couple small ones," Paige told her. "Nothing as bad as that episode in the elevator," she added, and for some reason, a guilty look flashed across Nick's face at her words.

"Do you feel up to pushing, again?" Doctor Dyers asked, and Paige nodded, eagerly. "We'll have to wait for another big contraction," Dyers went on, "but you're fully dilated, and I think it won't be very long, now."

"That's great," Paige said, excitement rushing through her as she glanced over at Nick. "We're going to see our daughter."

Nearly ten minutes later, another big contraction started, and Paige squeezed Nick's hand as she pushed. She could hear Nick's quiet voice as he murmured nonsense in her ear, and she clung to his soothing words.

At Doctor Dyers' encouragement, she kept pushing. The pain built to an almost unbearable level, but she wasn't about to back down, now. Not when she was so close to seeing her baby.

"Just a little bit more," Nick whispered, and Paige nodded, smiling gratefully at him when he wiped away the sweat rolling into her eyes.

"Again," Doctor Dyers instructed, and Paige bore down one final time.

The pain peaked, and then the pressure was abruptly gone. As she slumped back against the pillows, she heard a weak cry, and she beamed up at Nick.

"Our baby girl," she said, happily, and he nodded, speechless, as he wiped away a tear from his eye.

The nurse was busy with Pax on the far side of the room, and Paige squirmed, impatiently, wanting nothing more than to see her daughter. A few minutes later, she finally got her wish as the nurse crossed the room to stand beside the bed, Pax held safely in her arms.

"Here you are, Mom," she said, quietly, bending down to carefully place Pax in Paige's arms.

Paige instinctively curled her arms around Pax, looking down at her daughter in amazement.

"Hello, sweetheart," she murmured, quietly, feeling a grin split her face. "We've been waiting to meet you."

She sat up, with Nick's help, leaning back against the pillows as she beamed down at her daughter.

"She's perfect," Paige said, quietly, smiling happily at Nick, who was staring at Pax with a stunned look on his face.

"Yes, she is," Nick agreed, brushing a finger lightly over the baby's cheek. "Yes, she is."

** XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

It was nearly midnight when a noise woke her up. Paige came awake, abruptly, blinking in the dim light of the room, confused as to what could have disturbed her. Then, she saw Henry standing awkwardly in the doorway, and she smiled.

"Hey," she said, softly, as he came into the room, "what are you still doing here?"

"I wanted to see you and the baby," Henry confessed, his voice quiet. "It seems like every time I tried to come in, earlier, the room was completely full."

"Yeah," Paige said, fondly, "Dave and Julie have been pretty excited to see Pax. I didn't think I was ever going to convince them to go home." Frowning slightly, she added, "How did you manage to sneak past the nurses? They're pretty strict about visiting hours."

"I'm very charming," Henry countered, with a grin, and Paige rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"You're something," she told him, affectionately. "Did you want to hold Pax?"

"Isn't she sleeping?" Henry asked, even as he was drawn to the plastic crib that the baby was lying in. "I don't want to wake her up."

"She'll be up soon, anyway," Paige replied. "She's going to want to eat pretty soon."

As if the mere idea of food had been enough to wake her, Pax opened her eyes, slowly. She looked straight up at him, blinking her bright green eyes as she let out a quiet whimper.

"Give her here," Paige told Henry, who looked dubiously from her to the baby. "She's got one hell of a set of lungs on her; if she doesn't get food when she wants it, she'll scream loud enough to bring down the hospital."

Henry very visibly gulped, staring nervously down at the baby. Then, as carefully as if he was reaching for a live bomb, he picked Pax up. Cradling her against his chest, he made his way slowly to the side of Paige's bed. There was a terrified expression on his face, but he visibly relaxed once he was sitting in the chair beside her bed.

"Do you want to feed her?" Paige asked, and Henry looked at her in confusion.

"Don't you have to-" he started, gesturing vaguely in the direction of her chest, and Paige chuckled.

"I pumped earlier," she explained. "The nurses have her milk in a fridge, and there's a nurse out there that I swear is psychic. She should be here –" When a woman in dark blue scrubs appeared in the doorway, a bottle in her hand, Paige grinned. "Now," she finished. "Good timing," she added, to the woman. "She just woke up."

"Call me if you need any help putting her back to sleep," the woman said, handing Paige the bottle, and then she disappeared.

"Well?" Paige offered, holding the bottle out to Henry, and he took it, hesitantly.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and Paige nodded.

"She looks comfortable with you," she told him, watching as he guided the bottle into Paige's eager mouth. "And, you look pretty comfortable with her," she teased, gently, smiling when he blushed.

"She's beautiful," he murmured, quietly, an awestruck expression on his face as he stared down at the baby. "She's so tiny, and perfect."

"Two minutes, and she's already got you wrapped around her little finger," Paige teased him.

"Just like her mom," Henry shot back, grinning at her. "She looks just like you, Paige."

"She's unbelievable," Paige said, as she beamed at her daughter. "She's really mine."

"She's amazing," Henry told her, an unmistakable note of pride in his voice.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: **Thanks a million to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys rock.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Six Months Later<strong>_

"You look beautiful, sweetheart."

Paige looked away from the full-length mirror that she was standing in front of. She glanced back at Julie, who was beaming at her with an ear-to-ear grin on her face.

"Thanks, Aunt Julie," Paige said, with an answering smile of her own.

"And, Pax thinks so, too, don't you darling?" Julie cooed, bouncing the giggling baby girl in her arms.

Pax burst into a bright peal of laughter, reaching towards Paige with chubby arms.

"We don't want to rumple Mommy, sweetheart," Julie started, but Paige shook her head, holding her arms out to take her daughter.

"I don't care if I'm wrinkled," she said, as she cuddled the six-month-old to her chest.

"I'll bet Cheryl cares," Julie remarked, and Paige shot her aunt a wry look.

"I don't care what Cheryl thinks," she muttered.

But, she still tugged, self-consciously, at the skirt of her dress with her free hand, smoothing away nearly invisible wrinkles. Then, she forced herself to still her hand, leaving the dress as it was. If hugging her daughter wrinkled her wedding dress, then she'd wear the wrinkles with pride.

She looked up at the sound of a knock on the door frame, and a grin broke out over her face when she saw Prue standing in the doorway. The other woman grinned back, moving into the room and dropping her purse on the chair by the door, murmuring a quiet greeting to Julie as the older woman slipped out of the room.

"I didn't think you were going to make it," Paige said, absurdly happy to see Prue, there. "I thought you had to work."

"I convinced my new boss to give me the rest of the day off," Prue explained. "Sorry I'm such a mess," she went on. "I was cataloguing inventory in the storage rooms all day. I feel like I'm covered in a ton of dust."

"You look great," Paige assured her, quickly. "But, I thought your job was assistant curator and acquisitions."

"Oh, it is," Prue replied. "But, we're shorthanded, so I also get all the grunt work until we can hire more assistants. It's hard work, dirty-"

"But, you're having a blast, right?" Paige asked, with a knowing smile.

"Wouldn't trade it for the world," Prue said, and then she frowned, thoughtfully. "Okay, maybe for a position at the Louvre-"

"I could see you working there," Paige said, thoughtfully. "Here, hold Pax for a second."

She passed her daughter over to the other woman, reaching for the necklace lying on the table.

"My something old," she said, by way of explanation. "This necklace was my mom's. Dad gave it to her for their fifteenth wedding anniversary."

"It's lovely," Prue told her, as she shifted her goddaughter to her hip. "What about your something new?"

"Earrings," Paige replied, brushing back a lock of hair to reveal a set of diamonds hanging from her earlobes. "Nick lost my necklace right after Pax was born. I told him I didn't care about it. Cheryl gave it to me, and that thing was as ugly as sin. But, he saved up, and he bought me these earrings last week."

"They're beautiful," Prue said. "Why'd he need to save up, though? I thought you said that his family was loaded."

"They are," Paige said, flatly. "But, Nick cut himself off from his family after Pax was born. Said they would only be a toxic influence, and he didn't want that for our daughter. So, he got a job answering phones at a pro bono law firm, and I'm working temp jobs while I apply to colleges. We don't make a whole lot, and we're living in Julie and Dave's basement until we can afford an apartment of our own."

"Sounds like it would be easier to have his family help out," Prue pointed out.

"It would be," Paige acknowledged. "But, we're going to make it on our own. We don't need Cheryl, or her ideas about how we should run our lives."

"Okay," Prue said, although from the look on her face, she clearly thought that Paige was nuts. "You know, if you need anything-"

"We'll be fine," Paige assured her. "Now, for my something blue-"

"You mean other than the long face that Henry's sporting?" Prue teased, gently. When Paige shot her a questioning look, she continued, "Oh, come on, Paige. You know that boy is completely gone for you."

"Henry and I are just friends," Paige stressed, emphatically.

"Does he know that?" Prue asked, a skeptical tone in her voice.

"Yeah," Paige said, softly, "he does. We talked."

"I'll be that was uncomfortable," Prue muttered, shooting Paige an innocent grin when she glared at her. "Hey, you can't hit the woman holding your kid, can you?"

"We talked," Paige repeated. "I love Henry, I really do, but Nick is Pax's father. Henry understands that."

"Doesn't mean he has to like it," Prue shot back. Then, her tone softened as she added, "And it doesn't look like you like it much, either."

"I care about Nick a great deal," Paige protested, automatically.

"But this isn't how you imagined spending the rest of your life," Prue interjected, quietly. "Be honest, Paige. When you think about walking down that aisle, who do you really see waiting for you at the end?"

Paige closed her eyes, blinking back the sudden rush of tears that she absolutely refused to let fall. Henry's face had immediately flashed through her mind at Prue's question, but she resolutely pushed the image away.

"That's not fair," she whispered, glaring half-heartedly at Prue. "Nick and I are building a life, together. We have a family."

"But, you don't have to be miserable," Prue told her.

"I'm not," Paige snapped, sighing in resignation at the surprised look that flashed across Prue's face at her tone. "I'm not," she repeated, softer.

"But, you're not happy," Prue protested. "Not like you could be."

"I think it's a little late for my fairy tale ending, don't you?" Paige asked, rhetorically. "This is my life, Prue. There's no changing it, now."

Prue nodded, wordlessly, finally giving up the argument. "Okay," she said, quietly. "But, you're not walking down that aisle without something blue and something borrowed."

In answer, Paige picked up her bouquet from where it was sitting on the table. Sprigs of bright blue baby's breath were mixed in with the rest of the flowers.

"I've got the something blue," she replied. "Just missing the something borrowed."

"I've got that," Prue told her, snatching her purse up and pulling a jewelry box out. "This was my mom's," she explained, as she opened the box and handed it to Paige. "She called it her good luck charm."

"Prue, I can't wear this," Paige protested, as she looked down at the beautiful charm bracelet resting on the cotton padding.

"Sure you can," Prue responded. "Here, hold Pax."

Without waiting for an answer, she passed the baby back to Paige. Then, she grabbed Paige's free hand and deftly fastened the bracelet around her wrist.

"There," she said, satisfied. "It looks perfect on you."

"Prue, this was your mother's," Paige protested.

"And she wouldn't want it to sit in some drawer, somewhere," Prue shot back. "Now, say thank you."

"Thank you," Paige echoed, with a small smile.

Before she could say anything else, there was a knock on the door, and Dave poked his head into the room.

"You ready?" he asked, without preamble. "Everyone else is ready to get going."

"Yeah, I'm ready," Paige said, tugging one more time at her dress before she forced herself to stop.

She passed Pax back to Prue, giving her daughter a kiss before she left. Then, she linked her arm through Dave's as they went down the hallway to the room where the ceremony was going to be held.

"You look beautiful, sweetheart," Dave told her, as they stopped in front of the closed double doors.

"Thanks," Paige said, softly.

"Your parents would be proud," Dave went on, and Paige felt tears pricking at her eyes, again.

"I hope so," she whispered, blinking the tears away and hoping that her makeup wasn't about to be smeared.

"I know so," Dave told her, firmly. "You ready?"

Paige nodded wordlessly, stepping back as Dave reached out and pulled the doors open.

She and Nick had wanted a small ceremony, but Cheryl had stepped in fairly early on and taken over the whole affair. As a result, the people packing the church weren't anyone that Paige recognized, and she had the feeling that Nick would be hard-pressed to name any of them, as well. The only people she really knew were her family sitting at the front, and Henry and Prue sitting beside them.

As if he'd sensed her thinking about him, Henry craned his head around, meeting her eyes. He gave her an encouraging smile, his whole face lighting up with the gesture. _You're going to be fine_, he seemed to be saying, and Paige felt the butterflies in her stomach disappear.

"I'm ready," she said, quietly, answering Dave's question.

Then, she stepped through the doors and started walking down the aisle toward her future…


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: **Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. And for everyone who wanted to read it, the original _Down the Twisted Path_ (now called _Careless Wishes_) has been posted and is available to read on my profile.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Six Months Later<strong>_

"So, how's married life treating you?"

Paige shot Henry a look of wordless exasperation as she passed him a screaming one-year-old, flapping her hand at him to get him to move backwards. Pax's sobs quieted into hiccups as soon as she was in Henry's arms, and Paige glared at him.

"Well, let's see," she said, a testy tone in her voice. "Nick skipped out on our daughter's first birthday party to go to work, the party starts in an hour and I have nothing to feed anyone, and I'm plunging an overflowing toilet after my darling baby girl flushed her daddy's very expensive watch down the drain." Shooting the pair another look, where Pax was currently cooing happily in Henry's arms, she muttered, "Oh, and apparently my daughter likes you better than me."

"She does not," Henry protested. When Pax burst into giggles as Henry tickled her, he shot Paige an apologetic look. "She's just sensitive, and she can sense that Mommy's a little stressed out right now."

"You're not helping," Paige informed him, shortly.

"No, I'm plunging," Henry told her. Shifting Pax to a more comfortable position on his hip, he used his free hand to pull Paige to her feet and out of the bathroom. "You and Pax are going to go relax in the living room; I am going to fix your toilet."

"Are you staying for the party?" Paige asked, and Henry shot her a grin over his shoulders as passed Pax back to her and he rolled up his sleeves.

"Where else would I be?" he asked.

"Your godfather is a good man," Paige told Pax, as they went back down the hallway to the living room. "He's the best."

She settled Pax on the couch, flicking the television onto something with bright colors and cheerful sounds. Then, she headed toward the kitchen, where the only thing ready for the party was the sheet cake that she'd ordered two days ago. The kitchen was empty, and she had no idea what she was going to serve the people who were coming over.

When her phone rang a few seconds later, she answered it with a distracted greeting. The sound of her aunt's voice had her sighing in relief.

"Aunt Julie," she said, happily, and she could practically see the older woman smiling. "I need a favor."

"I figured you'd be a little frazzled right about now," Julie told her. "I still remember the chaos that erupted when your mom and I were trying to plan yours and Jeff's fourth birthday parties."

"Well, that's what you get when you both have kids born on the same day," Paige teased. "So, do you think you can run to the store for me? I have a half a dozen people coming, and nothing to feed them."

"Leave everything to me, sweetheart," Julie assured her. "I'll see you in about half an hour, all right?"

"You're a lifesaver," Paige told her. "Thanks, Aunt Julie."

With the food taken care of, it felt like a giant weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She finally felt like she could relax for the first time all day, and even getting a call from Nick didn't faze her. She just told her husband to have a good day at work, promised that she'd wait up for him until he got home, and told him that she'd give Pax his presents. She didn't even feel like throwing anything when she hung up the phone, which was the first time all week.

About fifteen minutes later, Henry emerged from the bathroom, wiping his hands on a towel.

"Bathroom is fixed," he declared, triumphantly. "I salvaged Nick's watch, and dried off the insides, and it's even working, perfectly."

"Thank you," Paige said, smiling at him. "What would I do without you?"

"Suffer horribly, of course," Henry said, airily, as he dropped down onto the couch beside her and Pax. "Get the food situation figured out?"

"Julie is coming by in a few minutes with supplies," Paige told him. "All we have to do until she gets here is relax."

"Sounds good," Henry replied, leaning back against the cushions. "So, how's school going?"

Before Paige could reply, there was a knock on the door, and Paige pulled a face.

"So much for relaxing," she muttered. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she called out, when the person on the other side knocked again. Pulling open the door, she grinned when she saw Prue on the other side. "What are you doing here?"

"My godmotherly duties," Prue said, brandishing a stack of brightly-wrapped presents. "I get free rein to spoil your daughter, right?"

"You and Henry." Paige shook her head as she stepped back to let Prue into the apartment. "My daughter is going to grow up with a complex."

"Oh, just relax and have fun," Prue chided her, cheerfully. "It's a party, remember?"

* * *

><p>Nearly three hours later, Paige dropped onto the couch with a groan as the last of the party guests left. Along with her family (none of Nick's relatives were willing to grace their tiny apartment with their presence), the party had consisted of Prue, Henry, and several of the moms from Pax's playgroup. There'd been more people than she'd anticipated, and chasing around after several toddlers had left her completely exhausted.<p>

She waved limply at Prue from her position on the couch, watching as the older woman left, shutting the door gently behind her. And then, just Henry was left.

"I figured I'd help you clean up," Henry explained, before she could ask him what he was still doing there. "This place is a mess."

"Cute, charming, and you do dishes," Paige mused.

"You think I'm cute?" Henry called back, teasingly, from the kitchen.

"Adorable," Paige assured him. "Hey, Henry? Thanks for everything."

"You okay?" Henry asked, poking his head out of the kitchen, a concerned tone in his voice.

"I'm fine," Paige said, quickly.

Part of her wanted to tell Henry everything; about the long nights alone, about the fights with Nick. But, another part insisted on keeping everything secret. She didn't need to drag Henry into her crazy, messed-up life. She didn't need to burden him with her problems.

"Everything's fine," she replied, trying to convince herself as much as him. "Hey, need any help?"

"No, I've got this," Henry told her. "Pax still asleep?"

Paige looked affectionately down at her daughter, where she was sleeping on the couch, her long, dark curls spread out over the throw pillow she was cuddled against.

"Out like a light," she responded.

Of course, that was when Nick, in a spectacular burst of bad timing, came home, throwing the door open so hard that it slammed back against the wall. Paige burst up from the couch and Henry came storming out of the kitchen, both of them ready to snap at Nick for being so loud when Pax was trying to sleep. But, then Paige noticed the way he was very carefully trying not to sway as he walked, the glassy sheen in his eyes, and she felt sick.

"You're drunk," she said, accusingly, and Nick turned to look at her, tipping his head to the side as he tried to think of a response. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Henry glaring at Nick like he wanted to punch the other man, and she wasn't sure that she would have tried all that hard to stop him.

"Yes, I am," Nick finally replied, nodding as though pleased with the answer he was able to give. "I am very, very drunk."

"It is your daughter's first birthday," Paige said, quietly. She was surprised at how calm she was able to keep her voice, given that she wanted to completely explode right then. "You missed our daughter's first birthday to go and get drunk off your ass."

Nick nodded, again, his eyes closing as he swayed on his feet from the slight movement.

"I did," he agreed, after a moment. "I am very sorry, but that is what I did."

"Would you care to explain why?" Paige gritted out.

Nick was silent for several long moments as he thought about his answer. When he finally looked at Paige, his eyes were strangely unfocused.

"My brothers wanted to spend some time with me," he finally told her. "They thought that we should – bond. Yeah, bonding. That's what we did."

"You bonded with your brothers," Paige echoed, slowly. "Well, I sure hope it was worth it."

"We didn't bond and get drunk," Nick blustered his way through an explanation. "I got drunk because we bonded."

Paige shook her head in disgust, glaring at her husband.

"I'm spending the night over at Henry's apartment," she informed him, an icy tone in her voice.

"Are you coming home in the morning?" Nick asked, and there was a plaintive, almost vulnerable note in his voice.

"Honestly," Paige said, with a quiet sigh, "I don't know."

Picking up Pax, who was somehow still sleeping through all their arguing, she brushed past Nick to grab her purse and her keys off the table beside the door. She brushed against his shirt, recoiling instinctively at the feel of something wet and sticky on his sleeve. When she looked down, she saw a smear of red on the side of her hand.

"There's blood on your shirt," she said, slowly, looking back at Nick for some kind of explanation.

"I-" Nick started, and then he trailed off as he stared at the blood on her hand, a haunted expression filling his face. "I cut myself," he murmured. "On a sharp piece of glass. I cut myself."

"Are you all right?" Paige asked, keeping her voice neutral, and Nick jerked his head in a quick nod.

"Fine," he said, shortly. "I – I'm fine. I need to sleep."

"I'll talk to you later," Paige told him, getting another nod in response.

Then, she walked out of the apartment without looking back.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: **Thanks a million to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. And for everyone who hasn't, why not? Come on; I can't make this story better if I don't know what you think.

* * *

><p>"Mama? Mama? Mama?"<p>

Paige cracked an eye open to see Pax standing beside her bed, leaning so close that for a second, all Paige could see were bright green eyes.

"Hi, baby," she said, sleepily. Pax laughed, scrambling onto the bed beside Paige and throwing herself across Paige's chest.

"Hungry!" Pax declared.

"Oh, yeah?" Paige replied. "Well, let's go get some breakfast, shall we?"

"Yay!" Pax cheered, and before Paige could stop her, she jumped off the bed. She hit the ground, but bounced up before Paige could ask if she was hurt and ran wildly for the door.

Paige chuckled as she got out of bed, getting dressed in the clothes she'd been wearing the night before and following her daughter out of the room. She went downstairs to the kitchen, to find Henry's foster mother, Sharon, busy with a hot stove. It looked like she was making pancakes.

Paige liked Sharon, and her husband Jim. They'd been Henry's foster parents for a couple of years when he was thirteen, and they'd been one of the few good families he'd been placed with. Henry had told her once that he'd fought leaving Sharon and Jim, that losing them had been the reason he'd started acting out and fighting.

He'd lost contact with Sharon and Jim for a few years, but a few months ago he'd turned eighteen and had been officially aged out of the system. He'd been sleeping on the couch in Paige and Nick's tiny apartment, facing the equally-distressing thoughts of going into one of the transitional homes, or trying to make it on his own, when Sharon had tracked him down and told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted her son to come home. For that alone, Paige loved the older woman like family. And it didn't hurt that they regarded her and Pax as the same.

"Hey, sweetie," Sharon said, without turning around. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah," Paige replied, as she scooped Pax up and deposited her in the high chair Sharon had dug out of the garage. "Thanks for letting me stay over."

"Honey, you wouldn't believe the number of fights that Jim and I had where one of us walked out of the house," Sharon told her.

"Any so bad that you didn't want to go home, again?" Paige asked, quietly.

"A couple," Sharon replied. "Want to talk about it?"

Paige sighed, joining Sharon at the counter and idly stirring the bowl full of batter that the other woman pressed into her hands.

"He came home drunk last night," Paige confided in her. "He said that he had to work, missed Pax's birthday because of it, and then he came home reeking of alcohol."

"I've made Jim sleep on the couch for far less," Sharon mused. "But, I get the feeling that there's more to it than that."

"Nick and I have been fighting," Paige told her, after a long moment. "I think he works too much, doesn't spend enough time with Pax. He thinks I'm wasting my time with school, and he doesn't like Henry or Prue. Says they're a bad influence."

"You fight a lot?" Sharon asked, and Paige shrugged.

"I guess," she said. "I mean, I knew married life wasn't going to be all sunshine and roses, but I didn't expect this."

"Is this the first time Nick has come home drunk?" Sharon probed, and Paige sighed.

"No," she admitted, softly. "He's never been this bad, before, and it's always after he spends time with his family. I tried to get him to just stop seeing them, if this is what it does to him, but he just told me to mind my own business, that I didn't understand what I was talking about, since my family was dead." She winced with remembered pain over that particular fight. "He made himself sleep on the couch after that one."

"Paige," Sharon prompted, after a moment, and she looked up to see the older woman watching her with a concerned expression on her face. "When Nick gets drunk, does he ever get violent?"

"Does he hit me, you mean?" Paige asked, shrewdly. "I'm not stupid, Sharon. The first time he hits me, it's over. And I'll kill him if he ever touches Pax."

"You know you're always welcome here, right?" Sharon asked, bumping Paige with her shoulder. "Henry certainly wouldn't protest getting to see more of you." She smirked knowingly at Paige, but before Paige could reply, Sharon leaned back and peered through the doorway into the living room. "Where is that boy, anyway?"

"Henry's still sleeping," came the sing-song answer, and Jenna, Sharon and Jim's fifteen-year-old daughter came into the kitchen. "Hey, pancakes!"

"Pancakes!" Pax echoed, happily, and then she burst into wild giggles as Jenna descended on her, tickling the baby until she was breathless with laughter.

"Henry!" Sharon bellowed, the sheer volume making Paige jump. "Get your lazy butt out of bed!"

A couple minutes later, Henry came stumbling into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was clearly still half-asleep as he moved across the kitchen, hugging Paige briefly from behind before he dropped into one of the chairs around the table.

The kitchen fell into a companionable silence, Paige and Sharon still working on breakfast. Sharon had just poured a big bag of chocolate chips into the pancake batter, winking conspiratorially at Paige, when the phone rang, and she snatched it up without missing a beat.

"Hello? Oh, _really_?" Paige cocked a curious eyebrow at the older woman; she had an idea of who might have gotten that reaction. And her suspicions were confirmed when Sharon continued, "And why, exactly, should I let you talk to her?"

Wordlessly, Paige held her hand out for the phone, nodding in reply to the question in Sharon's eyes.

"It's okay," she said, softly. "I'll talk to him."

She took the cordless phone out into the living room, dropping onto the couch in front of the big bay window.

"Nick," she said, quietly, and she heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line.

"Nothing I say or do will make up for what I did last night," Nick said, without preamble. "All I can do is apologize for my actions."

"It's a start," Paige agreed. "I don't think you should just be apologizing to me, though. Don't you agree?"

"Is Pax angry at me?" Nick asked, and Paige had to give him points for asking first about their daughter.

"Pax is one year old," Paige reminded him. "Luckily for you, she's too young to understand just what a colossal idiot her father was, last night."

"Are you mad at me?" was Nick's next question, and Paige sighed, rubbing at her temples where she could feel a headache forming.

"I'm disappointed," she replied, and in the back of her mind, she heard an echo of the old arguments she used to have with her parents. "Nick, why would you even go out with your brothers? You told me that you hate the person you are after you see them."

"They're my family, Paige," Nick protested. "I can't just ignore them, or cut them out of my life." He sighed, adding, "You wouldn't-"

"Don't you dare say that I wouldn't understand," Paige gritted out.

"My family is really intense," Nick argued, but Paige shook her head in exasperation.

"You were the one who wanted them out of our lives in the first place," she snapped. "You insisted that Cheryl would take over our lives, remember?"

Nick sighed, and then he was silent for several long seconds. Paige would have thought that he'd hung up, except that she could still hear him breathing.

"Are you coming home?" he finally asked, and Paige shrugged, even though she knew that Nick couldn't see her.

"I don't know," she echoed her answer from last night. "I need some time to think."

"Will you call me, tonight?" Nick asked, a plaintive tone in his voice.

"Yeah," Paige replied, softly. "Yeah, I'll call you later tonight."

"I love you," Nick said, and Paige closed her eyes.

"I know," she said, and then the phone went dead in her ear.

Paige went back into the kitchen, replacing the phone in the cradle, and then she looked up to see three pairs of curious eyes watching her. She gave them a weak smile.

"Can you watch Pax for a couple of minutes?" she asked Sharon. "I need to get some fresh air."

After Sharon nodded, Paige headed for the door that led out to the back porch. She settled herself on the porch swing, giving the swing a gentle push to start it moving, and leaned back with her eyes closed. When the swing shifted a few seconds later, she reached out and squeezed Henry's hand without opening her eyes.

"Maybe I'm being too hard on Nick," she said, quietly, and Henry snorted in disbelief.

"After what he did-" Henry started, but Paige sighed.

"That used to be me," she said, bluntly. "I was angry, and I was stupid, and I made my parents' lives miserable. The day they died, they'd caught me sneaking home, hung over, from some stupid party. The same party where Nick and I-" She trailed off, shaking her head. "I hardly have the moral high ground to be lecturing anyone on drinking."

"You're not that person, anymore," Henry said, gently, as he pulled her to him in a hug. "And Nick's behavior doesn't just affect you, it affects Pax, too."

"I know," Paige replied. "And I will do anything to protect her."

"Don't make any rash decisions," Henry told her. "Don't do anything while you're still angry."

"Where have I heard that sage advice before?" Paige asked, teasingly, and Henry grinned at her.

"Hey, it's still good advice," he protested. "And, my feelings about Nick, aside, I think you should take some time to figure out what you're going to do."

"I will," Paige agreed.

They sat out on the porch swing for a couple more minutes, side by side in silence. When they went back inside, they found that Jim had come back from the station, and was sitting at the table digging happily into a big stack of pancakes. Pax was sitting on his lap, chocolate smeared all over her face, and Paige burst out laughing when she saw her daughter.

"You," she declared, as she swooped down on her baby girl and swept her up into her arms, "are a complete mess. What am I going to do with you?"

"More pancakes!" Pax cheered, and Paige grinned.

"I don't really think that you need any more chocolate," she said, shaking her head. "What you do need is a bath."

"No bath."

"Yes, bath," Paige laughed. Turning around, she added, "Sharon, do you mind if I-"

"Go right ahead," the older woman told her.

Paige nodded in thanks, taking Pax down the hall toward the guest bathroom. She filled the tub with warm water, testing the temperature against her wrist, and then she stripped Pax out of her dirty clothes and put her in the water to let her splash around.

She'd been in there for about ten minutes when there was a hesitant knock on the door, and then Henry poked his head into the bathroom. Paige smiled at him, and he came in and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. There was a plain white envelope in his hands.

"What's that?" Paige asked, nodding curiously at the envelope.

"Mail that Jenna forgot to give me, yesterday," Henry told her. "It's – um – it's from the police academy."

"Have you opened it?" Paige asked, and Henry shook his head, wordlessly. "Well, go on, then."

"What if it says no?" Henry ventured, and Paige huffed in exasperation.

"It's not going to say no," she told him. "The San Francisco Police Department would be lucky to have you."

"Jim was telling us about this case he caught late last night," Henry blurted out, and Paige raised an eyebrow at the non sequitur. "These joggers found a body in Golden Gate Park. The poor girl's throat had been slashed."

"That's horrible," Paige gasped.

"She was like us," Henry went on, gesturing aimlessly between the two of them. "She was a foster kid. No one even knew she was missing until Jim went knocking on her foster mom's door. She died in the middle of the night, alone and scared, and no one knew until it was too late. No one cared."

"Jim cares," Paige pointed out. "That's why he took the case. You care, or you wouldn't be so upset."

"I want to make a difference, you know?" Henry asked, his head hanging and his hands dangling between his knees. The letter had dropped unnoticed to the floor between his feet. "I want to be able to help kids like that girl. Keep something like this from happening, again."

"And you'll be great at it," Paige reassured him, gently. "Henry, come on. Open the letter."

Bending at the waist, she scooped the letter off the bathmat, holding it out to Henry. He took it like she was offering him a live bomb, and then he just stared at it, blankly.

"I can't open it," he finally told her. "What if it's a no?"

Paige sighed, snatching the letter from between his nerveless fingers. She slid her finger under the flap and peeled it open, pulling out the first sheet of paper in the envelope. Scanning the letter, she smiled at the end of the first paragraph.

"Dear Mr. Mitchell," she read out loud, "we are pleased to inform you-"

"What?" Henry interrupted her, incredulously, looking as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Paige handed him the letter to read for himself, smiling reassuringly at him. Henry didn't look down at the letter, still staring straight at her, and Paige took pity on him.

"You're in," she told him. "You're going to be a cop."


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: **Things get a little grim from here until the end. We're in for a bumpy ride, folks.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eight Months Later<strong>_

"Welcome to our new home."

Paige stared up at the mansion, her mouth falling open in shock. The house, while not quite as palatial as Nick's childhood home, was far bigger than she ever would have expected. Three stories, surrounded by an enormous wrought-iron fence – Paige whirled around to gape at Nick.

"What is this?" she demanded, stabbing a finger back at the mansion.

"Our new home," Nick repeated, slowly, his brows knitting together in confusion.

"I heard that," Paige said, struggling for patience. "What I want to know is why."

"Mother gifted it to us as an anniversary present," Nick explained, and Paige felt her eyebrows fly up into her hairline.

"Gifted it?" she echoed, skeptically. "How, exactly, do you gift someone a house?"

Nick shrugged, nonchalantly. "My father inherited the house from some distant relative, before he died, and it's been standing empty all these years. Mother signed the deed over to us as a gift."

"You just had a house lying around?" Paige asked, in disbelief, and Nick shook his head.

"Why are you so upset about this?" he demanded. "I thought you hated our apartment."

"I did," Paige muttered. "But, it was ours. Not your mother's."

"This isn't my mother's house, either," Nick argued. "Not anymore."

"We built our lives, together," Paige protested, trying to get Nick to see exactly why she was so upset. "Yeah, there were some bumps in the road, but for better or worse it was ours. I don't want to give that up."

"We're not giving anything up," Nick said, firmly. "If anything, we're getting ahead in the world. I – _we_ deserve this."

Paige hadn't missed Nick's little slip, but she was going to let it pass. For now, at least. They'd been fighting almost constantly for the last few weeks, and she was tired of it. Tired of Nick making decisions without consulting her, tired of feeling like she had no input in their marriage, tired of shouting without Nick listening to her.

Instead, she turned her attention back to the house, staring in silent contemplation up at the mansion. Wordlessly, she bent down and grabbed her purse from where it had fallen to the ground when she'd first seen Nick's little surprise, and then she headed toward the enormous iron gate.

When Nick caught up with her, she shot him an impassive look. She knew that he was expecting a fight, but she didn't have the energy. It was just easier to give in and let Nick have his way.

"If we're going to be living here," she said, blandly, "you might as well give me the grand tour. We only have about an hour before we have to pick Pax up from my aunt's house."

* * *

><p>"Good night, my darling," Paige murmured, brushing a kiss across Pax's forehead.<p>

"Love you, Mama," Pax said, sleepily, her eyes drooping closed.

"Love you, too," Paige replied, clicking off the light as she closed the door gently behind her. "Sleep tight, sweetheart."

She headed back down the hallway and down the stairs, slowing down when she heard the low, angry murmur of voices coming from the living room. One was Nick, and the other-

Paige paused at the doorway, listening intently. She winced when she recognized Cheryl's distinctive, strident tones. She was about to backpedal down the hallway, go back to her bedroom to avoid running into her mother-in-law, when she heard her name mentioned. Curiosity overwhelmed her sense of self-preservation, and she hovered at the edge of the doorway, listening intently.

"-will never have a place in our world," Cheryl said, her voice dripping with disdain.

"She is my wife," Nick said, coldly, and Paige peeked around the door frame to see him standing ramrod straight in front of his mother, his arms crossed stiffly over his chest.

"She is inferior," Cheryl stated, flatly, and the words hit Paige like a punch to the gut. "Why you insist on keeping the girl around-"

"She is my wife," Nick repeated, flatly, "and the mother of my child."

"And I told you, over a year ago," Cheryl argued, "you should have just gotten rid of the girl after the baby was born. You don't need her. Just the child."

"That child is your only granddaughter," Nick pointed out, without bothering to address Cheryl's other comment. "You could spend some time with her. Call her by her name. You know, like a grandmother."

"My interest begins when the child is old enough to prove useful to us," Cheryl said, and Paige had heard enough.

She stormed into the living room, startling both Nick and Cheryl with her sudden arrival. She ignored Nick in favor of glaring furiously at Cheryl, her arms crossed tightly over her chest to keep from reaching out and strangling the older woman.

"I think it's time for you to leave," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the front door.

"Excuse me?" Cheryl demanded, her eyes flashing with anger as she looked past Paige, at Nick.

"It is late," Paige said, calmly, "and Pax is trying to sleep. You need to go home, Cheryl. Anything you have to say to Nick can wait until the morning."

"Are you going to let her speak to me like this?" Cheryl demanded, ignoring Paige and speaking directly to her son.

"She is my wife," Nick returned, with a shrug and a smirk. Paige was hard-fought to keep a grin off her face.

She turned her attention back to Cheryl in time to see the woman's eyes flash coal-black. It was like staring into an abyss, and Paige felt like she was falling head over heels into nothingness.

Then, the sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come on, and Paige shook her head to clear the cobwebs from her mind. When she looked back at Cheryl, the other woman's eyes were back to normal, and Paige was half-convinced that she'd just made it all up.

_'Probably just some trick of the light,'_ she thought, minutely shaking off the disorientation.

"I'll talk to you, tomorrow, Mother," Nick was saying, as he escorted Cheryl to the front door. "Go home, get some rest. I'll take care of this."

Cheryl said something under her breath, too low for Paige to hear her, and then Nick shut the front door softly behind her. He turned back around to find Paige glaring at him, a furious expression on her face.

"You'll take care of this?" she echoed, flatly. "Exactly what are you going to take care of, Nick?"

"Oh, come on," Nick protested. "I was just saying that to get my mother out of the house."

"That's not what it sounded like, to me," Paige snapped, angrily. "I thought that I was your wife, Nick."

"You are," Nick insisted, but Paige wasn't done.

"Then, why do I feel less like a partner and more like a possession?" she demanded. "Everywhere we go, I'm always introduced as your wife. To all of your friends and family, I'm just Nick's wife, no name of my own. You apologize for me-"

"That was a delicate situation at work," Nick broke in, hotly. "I couldn't let your opinions jeopardize my job."

"Your job," Paige repeated, quietly. "You had a good job at Child Services, Nick."

"I had a dead-end job," Nick snorted. "What, did you really expect me to spend the rest of my life helping widows and orphans?"

"I certainly plan on it," Paige gritted out, earning a cold laugh from Nick.

"You mean your little career?" he asked, derisively. "What kind of a future is social work, anyway? Do you really want to spend fifty-some years killing yourself for people who will never appreciate what you do?"

"As a social worker, I can help people get a better future," Paige told him.

"And I'm getting one for our family," Nick shot back. "Duncan found me a position at his law firm, and I took it. I'm going to be big one day, Paige. Bigger than you can ever imagine." He shook his head in disgust. "My mother was right," he muttered, under his breath, clearly not intending for her to hear him. "You really can't understand."

"I understand that I married an asshole," Paige fired off, without thinking about it.

A second later, the whole side of her face was on fire. She staggered back a few steps from the force of the blow, her ears ringing. She looked up just as Nick let his hand fall limply to his side, a horrified look crossing his face.

Paige stared at Nick in shock, one hand drifting up to brush against the spot where he'd struck her. Her mouth fell open, but nothing came out.

"Paige," Nick said, sounding as shocked as she felt. "I – I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

Paige could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back, fiercely, refusing to let herself break down. Not in front of Nick. Instead, she stalked across the room and down the hallway, to where Pax was sleeping in her new room. She scooped her daughter up into her arms, careful not to wake her, and then she headed straight for the front door.

"I'm sorry," Nick repeated, helplessly, as she stormed past him. "Paige, I swear, it will never happen, again."

"You're damn right it won't," she gritted out, whirling around to glare at him. "I'll be back for the rest of my stuff in the morning."

"You can't leave me," Nick protested, as she put her hand on the doorknob.

"You should have thought about that before you hit me," Paige snarled at him, furiously.

"You can't leave me," Nick repeated, emphatically, and this time there was a hint of anger in his voice.

"Watch me," Paige snapped, and then she pulled open the door.

Nick wrapped his hand painfully around her arm before she could step outside, wrenching her around as he yanked her back into the entryway. Paige stumbled, Nick's grip on her arm the only thing keeping her on her feet, and her arms tightened protectively around Pax to keep the little girl from falling to the floor.

"Let go of me!" she hissed, glaring up at Nick.

Nick simply tightened his grip on her forearm, his fingers digging painfully into her skin.

"You're mine," he growled, in a low voice. "You don't get to leave me."

Then, he stared into her eyes, and Paige felt like she was falling backward off a cliff. Black spots danced in front of her eyes, and then everything went soft and gray –

Paige blinked in confusion, staring at the open door. She looked back at Nick, silently asking for an explanation.

"Honey, are you all right?" Nick asked, concern heavy in his voice.

"I – I don't know," Paige said, looking around the house as she tried to capture the wisps of memory that teased at the edges of her mind. "What were we just doing?"

"We just got home from dinner, remember?" Nick prompted, gently, and after a moment, she did remember. They'd gone out for a romantic dinner to celebrate their first anniversary, albeit a few days late, getting a babysitter to stay with Pax. The girl had just left. "Maybe you should go lay down," Nick went on. "You don't look very good."

"I don't feel very good," Paige admitted, slowly. "I think I will go lie down. Can you put Pax to bed?" she added, glancing over to where the babysitter had left their daughter sleeping on the couch.

"Of course," Nick reassured her, with a smile. "Get some rest, sweetheart. Happy anniversary; I love you."

"I love you, too," Paige told him.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. You guys rock. We're almost at the end. Only three chapters left after this one.

* * *

><p>"Prue, would you just get out here?"<p>

Paige groaned, flopping back against the back of the chair. Then, she winced as she hit a particularly sore spot on her back, leaning forward to ease the pressure on the bruise. Henry, in the chair next to her, noticed, staring at her with a small frown on his face.

"Again?" he asked, pointedly. "Paige, I'm getting worried about you. That's the second time in three weeks that you've hurt yourself."

"It's just a bruise," Paige protested, even as she settled herself more comfortably on the seat. "Honestly, Henry, I'm fine."

"If you were fine, then you wouldn't keep hurting yourself," Henry muttered, and it was clear that he didn't intend for her to hear him.

"I'm a klutz," Paige told him, exasperatedly. "That's all, Henry. I swear."

"And, you would tell me if anything was wrong?" Henry pressed, insistently.

"I would tell you in a heartbeat," Paige promised him. "Nick is not hitting me. I promise."

But, now that Henry had put the idea in her mind, she couldn't help but wonder how she had wound up with her newest bruise. She honestly couldn't remember; Nick had told her that she'd fallen down the stairs and hit her head, that was why her memories were so fuzzy. But it seemed, lately, that she was having a lot of accidents that she couldn't remember, incidents that she only had Nick's word on what really happened.

_'Really?' _she thought, annoyed at her own paranoia. _'And is Nick somehow erasing my memories? I'm a klutz, nothing more.'_

She was jolted out of her thoughts as something heavy landed in her lap. She opened her eyes to see Pax perched on her legs, watching her with an undisguised curiosity on her face.

"Where's Auntie Prue?" she demanded, impatiently, and Paige grinned.

"Auntie Prue is primping," she said, raising her voice so that the woman in the dressing room could hear her. "And some of us are about to die of old age out here!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Prue grumbled, and then the curtain of the dressing room was swept aside and Prue stepped out. "What do you think?"

Paige looked at the filmy yards of taffeta that Prue was currently trying, and failing, to keep under control, raising an eyebrow at the slightly desperate look that the other woman shot her.

"I hope this wasn't your first choice," Henry spoke up, succinctly putting into words the sentiment that Paige couldn't quite figure out.

"It's an exact replica of the dress that Roger's mother wore at her wedding," Prue said, huffing out an irritated breath as she batted at the flyaway fabric currently trying to drown her. "She wouldn't dream of letting me wear her actual dress, heaven forbid, but she was quick to point out that the boutique carried this dress."

"No," Paige said, shaking her head. "Just – no."

"I think I'm with you," Prue agreed, ruefully, looking down at herself. "This thing is kind of hideous."

"Next dress, please," Henry added, waving his hand at Prue, and she shot him an irritated look.

"Would you like some popcorn, too?" she muttered, and Henry shot her a cheeky grin.

"Gets stuck in my teeth," he shot back.

Prue glared at him as she stomped back into the dressing room, the curtain falling shut behind her, and Paige leaned over and smacked Henry on the arm.

"Knock it off," she told him, sternly. "Prue's nervous enough about this whole engagement as it is; she doesn't need you making fun."

"Prue knows I'm just teasing," Henry told her. "It's how we communicate."

Before Paige could say anything in reply, the curtain of the dressing room slid to the side and Prue stepped out. The second dress she'd donned was a simple, strapless sheath that fell to the floor and pooled around her feet. The dress was pure, snowy white; elegant, with clean lines. Henry whistled in approval, and Paige nodded, smiling.

"Now, that's a dress," she told Prue, who beamed, twirling in a small circle.

"I like it," she said, happily.

"Princess Prue!" Pax declared, laughing, and Prue grinned, picking the child up and swinging her around.

"What about you?" she asked, as she tickled her goddaughter. "Do you want to be a princess at my wedding?"

"Yeah!" Pax cheered, and then she squirmed to get down and ran straight to Paige. "You're a princess, too?"

"Sure, okay," Paige agreed, with a chuckle. "We'll all be princesses."

Pax nodded, as if satisfied with the answer. She then turned to Henry, facing her godfather with a serious expression on her small face.

"Dance," she demanded, imperiously. "Dance with Princess Mommy."

"You heard the lady," Prue added, with a wicked grin. "Dance with the princess, fair prince."

Henry groaned, shaking his head. "It's a conspiracy," he told Paige, but, at Pax's prompting, he got to his feet and held a hand out to Paige. "Well? May I have this dance?"

"You may," Paige said, gallantly, playing along as she slipped her hand into Henry's and let him pull her to her feet.

"Since I never did get to dance with you at your wedding, and everything," Henry murmured, as he pulled her close.

Paige couldn't help the wince that emerged when Henry's hand brushed against the bruise on her lower back. A shadow crossed Henry's face, and he opened his mouth, but she shook her head before he could say anything.

"Please, just leave it alone," she said, softly. "Let's just dance, okay?"

Henry finally nodded, and they swayed in place to the classical music being piped in over the boutique's speakers. Pax was sitting on Paige's abandoned chair, watching them with a smile on her face, and out of the corner of her eye, Paige could see Prue slipping back into the dressing room to try on the next dress. A second later, a flash of bright light had Paige turning her attention back to Pax, just in time to watch her daughter disappear from the chair.

Paige felt her mouth drop open in shock as she stared at the chair where her daughter had been sitting. Beside her, Henry had the same gobsmacked expression on his face.

"Pax?" Paige whispered, stunned, but her daughter was still gone.

Endless seconds went by, each feeling like a lifetime, as Paige stared at the spot where her daughter had been, trying desperately to make sense of what she'd just seen. She could feel the panic welling up within her, threatening to explode outward, and she clutched at Henry's arms in a painful grip.

Then, the bright light filled her eyes, again, and a heavy weight landed in her arms. She stumbled as Pax materialized in her arms, beaming happily up at her, and Paige could only gape down at her in amazement.

"What did you just do?" she demanded, wrapping her arms protectively around her daughter.

"Dance, Mommy!" Pax demanded, completely undaunted by the incredulous looks she was getting from Paige and Henry. "Wanna dance with Uncle Henry, too!"

"Yeah, sweetie," Paige said, absently, sharing a disbelieving look with Henry. "Yeah, we can dance."

"What the hell just happened?" Henry murmured under his breath, looking as stunned as she felt.

"I have no idea," Paige whispered. "But, I think I need to start looking into who my birth family really is."

* * *

><p>"So, how goes delving into the mysteries of the universe?"<p>

Paige looked up, startled, at the sound of Henry's voice. He was standing in the doorway of the spare bedroom that she'd converted into a makeshift office, leaning against the doorframe. She blinked at him in confusion, and then automatically looked down at her watch to check the time. Just after midnight.

"How'd you get in?" she asked, and Henry chuckled.

"That's the first thing you say to your best friend?" he retorted. "Not, 'Hey, Henry, it's good to see you?"

"Hey, Henry, it's good to see you," Paige parroted back, blandly. "How'd you get in the house?"

"You gave me a key, remember?" Henry reminded her. "You called me a couple of hours ago, said that you'd found something-"

"Oh, right!" Paige scrabbled through the piles of paper that she had scattered across her desk, hunting through the notes she'd scrawled in quick, messy handwriting. "Yeah, do you remember when I told you how my birth parents abandoned me at this church, downtown?"

"You said that you went straight into social services," Henry said, "stayed in the foster system for a few years, and your parents adopted you when you were three and a half."

"Right," Paige confirmed. "Anyway, I was talking to Dave and Julie – discreetly, of course, because how do you start _that_ conversation – and they gave me the name of the nun who found me at the church. Sister Agnes. She still works at the same parish, so I went to talk to her, yesterday."

"What did she have to say?" Henry asked, as he came around beside her and perched on the edge of her desk.

"She remembered me," Paige told him. "We talked; it was – interesting, to say the least. She told me that she met my birth parents, that she talked to them, and they asked her to find me a good home. I was in some kind of danger, and they wanted to protect me."

"You were an infant," Henry pointed out. "Exactly what kind of danger could you be in?"

"That's what I thought," Paige said, wryly. "I started thinking that my birth parents were mobsters, or assassins, or-"

"What was it?" Henry prompted, encouragingly.

"Angels," Paige said, softly, still barely able to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. "She told me that my parents were angels."

"Like wings and halos?" Henry asked, incredulously. "Those kinds of angels?"

"The one and the same," Paige replied. "She said that they appeared in this bright, white light-"

"Pax," Henry said, quietly, and Paige nodded. A slow grin spread across Henry's face as he looked down at her, and he chuckled, softly.

"What?" Paige asked. "What's so funny?"

"You and Pax," Henry said, with a fond smile. "You're angels."

"All we have is one woman's word-" Paige started, but Henry cut her off.

"Appeared in bright, white lights," he quoted. "Tell me that's not exactly what Pax can do."

"Angels," Paige echoed, shaking her head in disbelief. "I can't believe that we're having this conversation."

"Have you told anyone else?" Henry asked. "Dave, Julie-"

"Yeah," Paige snorted, "because that's such an easy topic of conversation. 'Hey, guys, guess what? I think I might not be human.' No, I think I'll be keeping this little secret close to the vest."

"What about Pax?" Henry asked. "What if she does the light thing in front of someone?"

"Then, I'll deal with it when it happens," Paige shrugged. "But, so far, she doesn't do it around anyone else. Otherwise, I assume I'd be getting a panicked call from the babysitter demanding to know how Pax can disappear in the blink of an eye."

"Are you going to tell Nick?" Henry asked, touching on the one subject that Paige had been dancing around for days, now.

"I don't know," she admitted, honestly. "Again, how, exactly, is that conversation supposed to start? At the best, he calls me crazy and uses his family's connections to take Pax away; at the worst, I get caught in some kind of modern day witch hunt."

"I would never let that happen," Henry immediately vowed, and Paige smiled at him.

"Thanks," she said, softly. Turning her attention back to the papers scattered across the desk, she added, "Now, angels aside, let me show you what else I've managed to come up with…"


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note: **Things are officially getting real, folks. And we're almost to the end.

* * *

><p><em><strong>One year later<strong>_

Paige came home to the sound of her daughter's laughter. Pax was running through the house, slipping on the hardwood floors in her footie pajamas. Her hair, pulled back in a pair of pigtails, was already coming loose, wisps of dark hair flying around her face.

Sneaking up behind the little girl, Paige scooped Pax up in her arms, her daughter's bright shriek of laughter filling her ears.

"Mama!" she cried, her arms flailing, wildly.

"I love you so much," Paige told her daughter, hugging her, tightly. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes when she felt a pair of small arms wind around her neck.

"Love you, Mama," Pax told her. "Wanna play hide and seek?"

"Isn't it a little late for you to be up?" Paige asked, a moment later, pulling back and looking down at Pax. "Why aren't you in bed? And where's your father?"

"I'm not tired," Pax told her, a hint of a whine in her voice. "And, Daddy's gone," she added, and Paige's eyebrows flew up in shock.

"Daddy's gone?" she repeated, incredulously. "And where exactly did Daddy go?"

"He left," was all the further answer she got out of her little girl.

"Did he ask Mrs. Weston to come and stay with you for a while?" she pressed, trying to get a bead on the situation. Pax shook her head, solemnly, and Paige felt her ire rise.

What kind of man had she married, that he'd apparently left the house in the middle of the night, leaving their daughter alone by herself? What the hell had he been thinking?

Forcing herself to put her husband's strange behavior out of her mind, Paige went through the routine of getting Pax ready for bed. After brushing her teeth, washing her face, and three bedtime stories, she finally settled Pax down to sleep.

Then, Paige headed toward Nick's study, determined to find some answers. Entering the empty room felt strange; Nick worked all hours of the night, and his study was never so silent. Flicking on the desk lamp, Paige started to go through the papers scattered carelessly across the top of the desk.

She was hoping to find something, anything that would indicate why he'd felt the need to run out in the middle of the night, abandoning their daughter. Documents from work, or evidence of some sort of shady business deal, or love notes to a girlfriend, or – actually, she was hoping not to find that last one. She didn't think her ego could take being cheated on.

Reading through the last of the papers and finding nothing, she turned her attention to the desk drawers. The first few drawers she opened were nothing out of the ordinary, more paperwork from Nick's office that she expected to be there. Then, in the lowest drawer on the left side, her questing fingers found a seam at the back of the drawer.

Wedging her fingernails into the crack, and mourning the loss of a perfectly good manicure, Paige pried at the seam until the false bottom came loose. Pulling it up with some trepidation, Paige wasn't sure if she felt relief or disappointment when the only thing she found in the hidden compartment was a small black book.

_'Guess he's cheating on me, after all,'_ Paige thought, dismayed, as she plucked the book out of the drawer. _'The least he could have done was picked something less cliché to insult my pride and ruin our marriage with.'_

Flipping the book open, Paige raised a shocked eyebrow at the list of names written in Nick's small, neat handwriting that filled the pages. There were addresses, phone numbers, even physical descriptions, and for one wild second, Paige was tempted to ring up the first number in the book and demand to know how long the woman had been sleeping with her husband.

But, as she gave the contents of the little notebook a more careful scrutiny, she realized that at least half of the names in the book were male. And quite a few of them had Xs by the names. It was like Nick was checking off a to-do list.

Pausing at one name, Paige frowned as she re-read the address. It was the apartment building that had been on the news, that morning, where a young girl had been found brutally murdered in her home. And when she looked at the name, again, it, too, sparked in her memory. After a few seconds, she realized that it was the name of the girl that Henry had been telling her about, his runaway parolee.

Paige felt sick as she stared down at the book, and at the dark X marked by the girl's name. She didn't want to think about the significance of the X – but she kept coming up with darker and darker possibilities.

_'Evidence,'_ she told herself, firmly. _'I need more evidence than the address of a dead girl's murder site before I jump to any rash conclusions.'_

Even though a part of her insisted that this was her husband she was talking about, that she should ignore everything and just leave the room, she forced herself to get up out of the chair and start prowling around the room. She went through everything in Nick's office, taking books off the bookshelves and flipping through the pages, uprooting the potted plant in the corner and sifting her fingers through the soil, even using Nick's silver letter opener to slash the cushions on his expensive swiveling chair and pulling out the stuffing.

The oil painting of Pax that she'd given him for his last birthday was the last place she looked, and Paige winced with a nearly-physical pain as she took the painting off the wall. She'd spent a lot of time on the painting, and it hurt her to think that Nick would use something so precious to hide his dirty little secrets.

She breathed a sigh of relief, though, when she saw a nearly-invisible seam in the wall that had been hidden behind the painting. She wasn't going to have to destroy her work, after all. Wedging the letter opener into the seam, she wiggled her impromptu crowbar back and forth slightly until the sheetrock of the wall gave under the pressure. She worked her way through all four seams, catching the section of wall when it fell into her arms and crouching to place it gently on the floor.

_'Most men have wall safes put in,'_ she thought, irritated with Nick on a whole new level. _'My husband chooses to use our home as a testing ground for his amateur carpentry skills.'_

Straightening back up from her crouch, Paige sucked in a sharp breath at what she found in the hole in the wall. She pulled out a rust-colored hooded robe, a sharp, silver dagger, a chalice crusted over with flecks of dried blood, and an amulet set with a dark ruby in the center.

_'What the hell?'_ she thought, incredulously, as she stared in horror at the bloodstained items hidden in the hole in the wall. _'Just what is Nick getting himself into?'_

When she heard a noise from behind her, she whirled around to see Nick standing in the doorway, watching her with suspicious eyes.

"What are you doing in here?" he demanded, harshly. "I told you never to come into this room-"

"Why not?" she shot back, as a slow burn started in her chest.

She was furious. With Nick, for getting into something that put their daughter at risk, and with herself for not seeing that something was wrong, sooner.

"Didn't you want me finding _this_-" she snapped, stepping aside and stabbing a shaking finger at the hole in the wall, "-whatever the hell this is?"

Nick's eyes widened in momentary shock, and if she hadn't been watching him so closely to see his reaction, she would have missed it altogether. Then, his expression smoothed out into a blank mask, and he moved slowly into the room, clapping mockingly.

"Very good," he sneered. "Looks like you've found my little secret."

"What is this, Nick?" Paige demanded, furiously, glaring at him. "Why are there names crossed out in a book? Why is everything covered in blood?"

"Well, if you really need to spell it out for you-" Nick began, scornfully, and Paige slammed her hand down on his desk, silencing him, abruptly.

"Damn it, Nick, this isn't a game!" she shouted, as she glared across the room at him. "What the hell have you gotten into? What kind of monster are you?"

"A demon, actually," Nick said, casually, and Paige felt like the wind had just been knocked out of her.

"What?" she asked, in disbelief, completely floored. "You're-"

"A demon," Nick repeated, patiently. "You know, brimstone, hellfire, human sacrifice-"

"Those names in that book," she said, slowly, horror in her voice. "You killed them."

"Well, not just me," Nick told her. "But, yeah, I killed them."

"And, what?" Paige demanded, angrily. "Are you going to kill me, too?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Nick said, with a scornful laugh. "I can't kill you; that would raise too many suspicions."

"You can't possibly think that I'm okay with something like this," Paige retorted, incredulously.

"You don't have to be okay with it," Nick told her. "In fact, after I'm done, you won't remember any of it."

He reached for her, and Paige instinctively dodged out of the way. She reached blindly behind her, grabbing something sharp and heavy off his desk. Then, as Nick grabbed at her, again, she slammed the object into the side of his face with all of her strength.

Nick howled in pain, blood gushing down the side of his face where the heavy, crystal paperweight had struck him, and one hand flew up to cover his wounded eye. Paige darted out of the reach of his free hand, sprinting down the hallway to where Pax was sleeping in her bedroom. She slammed the door shut behind her, locking it with shaking hands, and then she turned to look at the little girl who was sitting up in bed, blinking at her in confusion.

"Mama?" she asked, sleepily.

"It's okay, baby," Paige said, soothingly, as she crossed the room to her daughter's side. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

Bending, she gathered Pax into her arms, staring apprehensively at the closed door. She didn't dare go back out into the hall; not when Nick was going to be waiting for her. And going out of the window was out of the question; they were two stories up, and she couldn't risk Pax getting hurt by the fall.

Nick slammed into the door, suddenly, from the other side, and she clutched Pax to her chest, making the little girl whimper.

"You can't hide from me, Paige!" Nick shouted, his voice menacing. "Why don't you just make this easier on yourself and come out, now?"

"Go to Hell!" Paige shouted, furiously.

In response, Nick slammed his fist into the door, again. The wood splintered, a long crack running up the length of the door, and Paige shrank back in instinctive fear. Another blow had the door flying open, slamming back against the wall, and then Nick appeared in the doorway, a dark expression on his face.

"You could have made this painless on yourself," he told her, as he stalked forward, slowly. "But, you stubborn little idiot, you just had to take the hard way, out."

Then, as Nick reached for her, she felt something swell up inside her. She felt his hand close, painfully, around her arm, and then the world disappeared in front of her eyes in a flash of white light…


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note: **Second-to-last chapter. Hope you've been enjoying the ride, so far.

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><p>When the light faded, and Paige could see, again, she wasn't in Pax's bedroom, any longer. She was standing in the middle of Henry's living room. She looked around, wildly, still half-expecting to see Nick coming after her, but she was all alone in the dark apartment.<p>

She let out a shuddering breath as she backed up, slowly, sinking down to sit on the couch. Pax was still curled against her chest, her eyes wide with shock, and Paige ran a shaking hand lightly over her little girl's curls to calm her down.

"It's going to be okay, sweetheart," she murmured, quietly. "I don't know how, but it's going to be okay."

A sudden noise had her looking up, startled, and she stared in horror at the dark figure that was coming at her. Then, Henry stepped out of the shadows, and she slumped back against the cushions in relief.

"Oh, god, Henry," she said, and her voice hitched on a sob. "I thought – I thought you were-"

"Paige?" Henry asked, incredulously. "Paige, it's the middle of the night; what are you doing here?" Looking over at the still-locked front door, he added, "How did you even get in?"

"I don't know," Paige told him. "One second I was standing in Pax's bedroom, and the next, I was here."

"Like Pax, when she does that light thing," Henry said, and Paige nodded.

"Sort of," she replied. "But, I don't think that Pax was the one who did it."

"You think that you-" Henry began.

"I don't know what to think," Paige told him, wearily. "Henry, Nick attacked me, tonight."

"What?" Henry exploded, and Pax shrank back against Paige's chest with a quiet whimper.

Henry immediately calmed down, lowering his voice as he crooned to Pax. The girl went to him when he held his arms out to her, and he settled her on his hip.

"I'm going to go put Pax down in my room," he told Paige, who just nodded, leaning tiredly back against the couch with her eyes closed.

The room was silent after he left, and Paige found her thoughts, whirling, wildly, over everything that she'd learned that night. It had been enough of a shock over the last year to discover that Pax possessed some kind of magical powers, that they both were angels, if Sister Agnes was to be believed – to find out, now, that her husband was a demon, that he killed people –

_'I thought that what I was hiding from Nick was big,'_ she mused. _'Apparently, I didn't know the meaning of the word.'_

She opened her eyes as the cushion beside her dipped down, and she saw Henry looking at her with a serious expression on his face.

"If Nick hit you-" he began, and Paige cut him off, knowing what he was going to say.

"We can't get the police involved," she insisted.

"Paige," Henry started, but she shook her head, determinedly.

"Trust me, Henry," she told him, "involving the police will only make things worse."

"How?" Henry demanded, baffled.

"Because Nick isn't human," Paige said, wearily. "He's a demon. He told me, himself."

"A w_hat_?" Henry asked, incredulously.

"He left Pax alone, tonight," Paige started, trying to explain everything that had happened. "And I went snooping in his office for answers, and I found some things-"

"What kind of things?" Henry prompted, gently, when she fell silent.

"A bowl caked with dried blood, a knife, and a bunch of really creepy other stuff," she told him, flatly. "And a book with names crossed out. One of them was Rachel Conway," she said, grimly, as his eyes narrowed in realization.

"Son of a bitch," he growled, and Paige nodded in agreement.

"How do you think I feel?" she retorted, darkly. "I married the son of a bitch, and all of this has been going on under my nose for God knows how long."

"You shouldn't blame yourself," Henry told her, automatically.

"I don't," Paige snapped. "I blame Nick." Changing tacks, she added, "What are we going to do, here? I'm not going to let that bastard get his hands on Pax, again."

"You called him a demon?" Henry asked. When Paige nodded, he added, "Well, if demons exist, doesn't it make sense that so would demon hunters?"

"Like what?" Paige demanded, incredulously. "The Archangel Gabriel coming down from the heavens with a flaming sword?"

"Maybe," Henry suggested, with a shrug. "Or, maybe, ordinary people with powers. People like you and Pax."

"What are we supposed to do?" Paige asked. "Take out an ad in the paper? Look for demon exterminators for hire?"

"Did you see anything in Nick's office that would help us?" Henry prompted, but Paige shook her head in frustration.

"Other than the tools he used to murder Rachel Conway?" she asked. "Nothing. If there are people who hunt demons, I doubt I'd find them in his address book, anyway."

"So, the first thing we're going to do," Henry continued, after thinking about it for a minute, "is get out of town, tonight. We'll go somewhere that Nick will never think to look for you or Pax, and then we'll figure out our next move from there."

"You'll never even make it out the front door," a familiar voice said, sneeringly.

Paige whirled around to see Nick and his brother, Duncan, standing in the doorway, furious expressions on their faces. Without thinking about it, she bolted down the hallway toward where Pax was sleeping, with Henry hot on her heels.

They'd almost made it when the room started spinning in front of Paige's eyes, black spots dancing in her vision. She staggered, falling heavily against the wall. Behind her, Henry crashed to the ground, and Paige wasn't too far behind him.

She managed to roll over as she fell, staring up at Nick in horror. Then, the world went black…

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

"Cutting it rather close, aren't you?" Duncan asked, mockingly, as he strode up beside Nick and stared down at the unconscious couple in the hallway. "If you'd left them conscious any longer, they would have gotten to your daughter and escaped with her."

"How would they have escaped?" Nick asked, scornfully. "We're seven stories up."

"You're the one who said that your wife orbed out of your house," Duncan reminded his brother. "If she really is a Whitelighter's brat, then she's probably got all sorts of tricks up her sleeves."

"Not for long," Nick said, darkly. "When I get through with her-"

"Forget her," Duncan ordered, harshly, as his younger brother glared at him. "You called me to get your daughter away from your wife, after you screwed up and let her find out about you. We don't have time to punish her."

"She's mine," Nick insisted, stubbornly, and Duncan cuffed him, hard, on the back of the head.

"Focus," he snapped at him. "Get the girl; we'll deal with your wife and her little pet mortal, later."

Nick glared at him, again, but then he stepped over the couple's unconscious bodies and stalked toward where he could sense Pax. He was back a few seconds later with the sleeping child held safely in his arms.

"Now, let's get out of here," Duncan said, but Nick shook his head.

"No," he insisted. "We have to do this, right. I don't want any suspicion of this coming back on me, later."

"So, what do you suggest?" Duncan asked. "We can't kill them, there would be too many questions coming your way. We can't afford that kind of exposure."

"We're not going to kill them," Nick said, glaring down at Paige's crumpled form. "Not yet, anyway. Might kill the mortal later, just for fun-"

"Focus, little brother," Duncan said, firmly. "How do you want to get Paxton away from your wife without raising suspicions?"

"I'm going to erase Paige's memory of everything that she's learned, tonight," Nick told him, and Duncan snorted out a dry laugh.

"With the way you've been riffling through her mind for the last year," he commented, "her brain is going to resemble Swiss cheese."

"Going to erase her memories," Nick went on, ignoring Duncan's interruption, "and take her home. Tomorrow, Paige has a play date planned with that stupid Mommy and Me group she belongs to, out at Golden Gate Park. We'll simply wait for an opportune moment, and then spirit Pax away from Paige."

"And everyone will think that your daughter was kidnapped," Duncan finished for him, a satisfied tone in his voice. "You'll play the grieving father in public, and you'll be able to groom your daughter to follow our family's legacy, away from certain poisonous influences."

"Exactly," Nick said. "Here, take Pax for a moment."

He passed his sleeping daughter over to Duncan, and then he crouched down beside Paige and Henry. He placed a hand on each of their foreheads, closing his eyes in concentration. Manipulating people's minds was like child's play to him, but even he had his limits, and hunting down specific memories in two people at once was testing his limits. People's minds weren't calm and orderly; memories weren't linear. Instead, thoughts were jumbles of pure chaos, and he had to painstakingly search in order to catch glimpses of the memories he was looking for.

From the mortal's mind, he caught snatches of memories involving Paige, overlaid with strong emotions that made Nick's lip curl with disgust and anger. But, he pushed the feelings aside; some day, he'd finally do away with the mortal, forever, and greatly enjoy it.

From Paige's mind, he primarily caught glimpses of their earlier encounter; dwelling on it even in her unconscious state. There was also a majestic church, and enormous, white wings, and a sad-eyed man and a woman with dark hair.

He erased any memories he found of that night, taking time to make sure that he left nothing behind. Then, he pulled Paige over his shoulder in a firefighter's carry, straightening up and turning his attention to Duncan.

"Dump him on his bed," he said, kicking the still-unconscious mortal in the ribs. "Don't want him getting suspicious."

Duncan waved a hand, making the mortal disappear in a hazy shimmer. Then, the two of them shimmered out of the apartment with their burdens, leaving the place dark behind them.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note: **And here we are, the last chapter of _Gossamer. _To everyone who's stuck with me this far, thank you so, so much. You guys are awesome.

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><p><em><strong>January 17, 1998<strong>_

Paige woke up with a pounding headache. She sat up in bed, gingerly rubbing at her temples as she squinted in the sunlight that poured into the bedroom.

_'What the hell happened last night?' _she thought, blearily, looking around in confusion. _'This feels like the worst hangover of my life, but I wouldn't. God, why can't I remember?'_

Vainly, she searched her memories for any scrap of what might have happened the night before, but there was nothing. Just a huge blank. And, alarmingly, when she put her hand down, there were faded streaks of red on her fingertips.

She jumped out of bed, ignoring the dizzy, nauseated feeling that washed over her from the sudden movement, and headed into the bathroom. She flicked on the light, looking in the mirror, and gasped at the gash on her forehead that was crusted over with dried blood.

"What the hell?" she murmured, lifting a hand to brush against her forehead, and then she jumped when a shadow fell over her from behind.

Nick was standing in the doorway, a concerned expression on his face. He held a white bottle and a half-full glass of water in his hands, and he rattled the bottle at her when he noticed her looking at him.

"Aspirin," he said, as he held the bottle out to her. "For your head."

"Why do I even need aspirin?" she asked, carefully, as she pushed herself away from the counter. "Nick, what happened last night?"

"The doctor warned us you might not remember," Nick said, ruefully, an apologetic expression crossing his face. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I should have been here when you woke up."

"Nick," Paige said, insistently, and he nodded.

"You tripped and fell down the stairs," he explained. "Bashed your head on the railing," he added, gesturing at the gash on her forehead. "We spent a few hours in the ER waiting to get you checked out, and they sent us home after they figured out that you had a concussion. I've been waking you up every couple of hours to check on you – you really don't remember any of this?"

"Nothing," Paige admitted. "I must have hit my head pretty hard."

"You scared me half to death," Nick said, softly, reaching out and brushing her cheek with his thumb. "I don't ever want to lose you, Paige."

"You won't," Paige promised, even as she fought against the overwhelming and disturbing urge to flinch away from his touch. "Hey, don't you have work?"

"I was going to call in sick," Nick said, pressing the pills and water into her hands. "I didn't want you to be alone. Take those," he added. "You're going to have a monster of a headache, if you don't."

"Go to work," Paige insisted, pushing her husband out of the bathroom. "I have Pax's play date, remember? I doubt you'd be interested in going with me."

"It might be interesting," Nick said, faintly, and Paige laughed at the alarm that flashed across his face.

"Liar," she said, affectionately. "Go to work; I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"Call me, so that I know you're okay," Nick insisted, backing out of the bathroom. "I'll get Pax ready for you while you're taking a shower."

"Thanks," Paige said, and then she shut the door behind him.

The heat from the shower helped relax tight muscles she didn't know she had, eased some of the pounding in her head. She toweled off when she finished, going out into the bedroom and hunting through the closet for something to wear. She settled on an old, worn-out sweatshirt that Henry had loaned her when she was pregnant and she'd never returned, and her comfiest pair of jeans.

When she went downstairs, she found Nick and Pax in the kitchen, her husband feeding their daughter breakfast. Nick glanced up as she entered, a small frown flashing across his features when he saw what she was wearing. Paige bristled silently at his disapproval of her outfit, but she wasn't going to go upstairs and change. She'd let Nick's silent judgment affect her too many times, before.

"You ready to go, sweetheart?" she asked Pax, instead, and the girl giggled when she saw her mother.

For a moment, Paige was afraid that Pax was going to do her light trick in front of Nick, spilling the beans on their secret long before Paige was ready to tell him. But, the toddler simply reached for Paige, stretching out of the chair she was sitting in. Paige scooped her up before she could fall, pressing a noisy kiss to her cheeks.

"What do you say?" she asked. "You want to go play in the park?"

"Yeah!" Pax cheered, happily. "Bye, Daddy! See you later!"

"I think that's my cue to go to work," Nick said, with a chuckle. "Take it easy, today," he added, giving Paige a concerned look. "All right?"

"I will," Paige promised, and then she and Pax waved to him as he went out to his car and drove off to work. "All right, Miss Pax," she went on, turning her attention back to her daughter, "let's go have some fun."

Half an hour later, Paige was sitting on a bench, watching Pax run around the Children's Playground with the other kids. She chatted idly with the other moms, keeping an eye on Pax's bright red jacket.

"Hey, lady," came a familiar voice from behind her, and Paige tipped her head back to see Henry and Prue standing over her.

Both of them were wearing jogging outfits, and Henry had a bottle of water in his hands that he held teasingly over Paige's face. A single drop of water rolled down the side of the chilled bottle to splash onto her forehead as he slowly started to tip the bottle forward.

"Don't you dare," she said, threateningly. "Henry, I swear-"

Prue huffed a sigh, elbowing her running partner in the side and snatching the bottle of water out of his hands before chugging down half in one long gulp. She elbowed Henry in the side with a roll of her eyes.

"How can you two stand to go running in January?" Paige asked, as they plopped down on the bench on either side of her, their breath puffing out in short, white bursts.

"We're in California," Prue said, with a shrug, dismissing the cold weather like it was nothing.

"We're in San Francisco," Paige pointed out. "Maybe you've noticed the really cold ocean outside our doorsteps?"

"You could always come with us," Henry said, and Paige shook her head. "Oh, come on," he added, pleadingly. "It'll be really, really fun, I promise."

"You exercise fiends can spend time pounding the pavement," Paige told him. "I get more than enough exercise running after a hyper three-year-old, thanks."

"Speaking of," Prue said, looking around the playground, "where is our beautiful goddaughter?"

"She's right over-" Paige started, and then she froze, terror seizing her when she looked around the playground and realized that she couldn't see Pax.

"Pax?" she called out, tamping down the fear as she walked briskly toward the playground. "Pax, come on out, now!"

But, there was no answer, not even a tell-tale giggle, giving away her daughter's hiding place. And the uneasy feeling that had been gnawing at her gut exploded into full-blown panic.

"Pax!" she yelled, a cry that was echoed a second later by both Prue and Henry as they joined her.

"Maybe she just wandered off, somewhere," Henry suggested, but there was a note of tension in his voice that indicated that he didn't really believe his own words.

"She wouldn't do that," Paige protested, still looking around. "She knows better than to wander away from me, like that."

"Pax!" Prue called, her own voice tight with worry. "Come out, now, honey!"

Paige turned around in another circle, her hands clenching in fists as she scanned the playground. A flash of color out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she was running toward it before she'd even realized that she was moving.

She stopped at the bushes that lined the edge of the playground, reaching down and picking up a bright red coat with trembling hands. Her daughter's favorite doll was still stuffed in one of the pockets, flopping limply to the ground when Paige moved the coat. She bent, slowly, and picked up the doll, tucking it protectively against her chest as she straightened.

She met Henry's eyes as he caught up with her, seeing the same horror in his eyes that had to be reflected in her own. Paige looked around the park, again, still praying to see a familiar head of dark hair running around the playground. But, her baby girl was nowhere in sight.

"PAX!"

_To be continued…_

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><p><strong>Author's Note II: <strong>Just in case anyone was thinking of bringing out the pitchforks, I warned you that this story wasn't going to have a happy ending. But, I adore Pax, and this is definitely not the end of her story, I promise. Look for the sequel to _Gossamer_, called _Comes Out of Darkness, Morn_, coming bright and early Monday morning.


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